Campaign to Fill Neyland Stadium
Now that former Vol Ball Head Coach Bruce Pearl has taken a job as V.P. of Marketing for Knoxville-based H.T. Hackney, I am consumed with an idea…
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Only 94,661 came to see the 2011 opener at Neyland Stadium Saturday night, which is probably the lowest attendance for a home opener since the current stadium configuration was created: 99,123 last season; 98,761 in 2009; and 98,205 in 2008.
Well over 100,000 in the years before that – 108,625 in 2004!
So, now that the Vols seem relatively incapable of filling old Neyland Stadium on a weekly basis – my unofficial count is 5 home games in 2010 were below capacity – there must be an explanation.
And, a solution.
You might say it is the total prices for tickets, concessions, etc. That’s not going to be tinkered with for obviou$ rea$on$.
You might say that it is just too easy to sit at home – with a big couch and all of the chicken wings and cold beer close at hand, and the glorious invention of HDTV – and not have to drive. That’s today’s world of consumer technological convenience.
Well then… perhaps we simply do not have enough fans.
Perhaps what we need is a creative public relations campaign.
We don’t need bling. We just need something more imaginative… a little off beat…
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A campaign video. Yes, a campaign video.
Picture this…
It opens with a Vol fan standing in front of a half-empty south end upper deck in Neyland Stadium. Above, on the giant scoreboard are the words “There’s a problem: there aren’t enough of us.”
Then the voiceover says there is a solution. The camera zooms to the fan’s crotch…
Next scene: The fan is in a sperm donor clinic in West Knoxville, being given a plastic container… and a DVD entitled Tennessee’s Hot Zombies.
Or, Zombies Calientes de Tennessee, for our hispanic fans.
There's a future Vol in there somewhere...
Next scene: there are young women in a room. Beautiful women. Walls are bespeckled with Tennessee Vol posters, pennants, and the like. A poster of Coach Dooley with perfect hair adorns a wall of his own.
These incredibly beautiful women are drinking a potion – it turns them in to sex-mad zombies! [Is that Layla K. in the corner?]
The fan has no problem making a donation.
Next scene: A woman is holding a baby. A NEW VOL FAN!!!!!!
A new generation of Vols for Life.
Now, our campaign video closes with a graphic representation of a sperm entering an egg which turns into a Power T.
And words appear… “The more the better.”
A voice closes our film by saying that the video is available not only at all sperm banks throughout the state, but also at all Cas Walker and Piggly Wiggly stores as well as some newstands in the greater Knoxville area.
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OK. You are thinking that Norcalvol has simply lost his mind. Hmmmm…
No. Instead, perhaps Getafe Football Club did.
It was their idea.
Have a peek at their promotional video – they are a Spanish soccer team who play in Spain’s top division (La Liga) and are located near Madrid, having a helluva time competiting for fans with kingpins Real Madrid and Atlético Madrid.
They have used the video this pre-season. The names are changed to protect the innocent.
Could this work in the Volunteer state? One can only hope…
Back in my student days, this could have been a hit at the Bijou Theater on Gay Street.
“Go Big Orange!” yelled someone near the front, as an orange was rolled down her bare belly on the giant screen…
Vols in the Fall 
One solution that readily comes to mind is to SCHEDULE AN OPPONENT PEOPLE ACTUALLY WANT TO SEE! Not some cupcake against whom Tennessee can run up the score, but a bona fide Division I, FBS team with some sort of track record/history to its football program. Not Western Kentucky, not UT-Martin, not Montana, not University of the Southwestern Part of Northeast Louisiana, but a school has some OOMPH to it.
This complaint goes hand in hand with one of my (many) complaints about Mike Hamilton — taking the University of North Carolina off the schedule for this year, in essence because getting beaten by big, bad UNC would damage the collective and individual psyches of our football team and its players; and who needed that in a rebuilding year? It used to be (“back when I was a boy”) that in terms of out-of-conference opponents, UT’s motto was, “Anybody, anytime, anywhere.” Hell, we might get beaten, but at least we kept our pride and our self-image; and we’d definitely kick their ass the next time, if they gave us the chance. Now, we puff out our chests when we run up the score on the likes of the Hilltoppers or the Grizz. We used to laugh at Alabama and Florida when they scheduled the Little Sisters of the Poor to open the season with; now, we are no better than they are.
So, if we want to fill up Neyland Stadium for opening day, schedule a worthy opponent; then you’ll see the stadium at capacity!
My only question with the solution proposed in the video is, won’t it take a whole generation to get our new fans? What do we do in the meantime? (Although, successive generations of inbreeding has created an impressive Alabama fanbase . . . .)
Things take time, RT78. Just think of it akin to the Slow Food Movement – we’ll all enjoy it more because it is sustainable.
In all seriousness, I share your irritation with this subject. I think it was a famous LSU fan – James Carville – who recently bemoaned the fact of his Tigers playing “Ooo La La” and the like. His radical idea was to play the entire SEC and nobody else. Then you would have a true champion.
Of course his idea would never be realized for many reasons (we’d just beat each other up an never get into the championship game) but at least we could hold our head high and scoff at the other sissy conferences.
I think the workable solution would be to prohibit Div I from playing II opponents (in the old use of those terms). I share your disgust of playing Montana and UT Martin.
maybe you should get back to football and leave these spanish speaking ideas to our illegal immigrants……………………and as far as that orange on the belly, well, hey, i i was at that movie too. do you remember how it ended???????
I’m afraid to ask…
something about juices flowing…….not sure it was orange juice tho. i was just there to study the architecture of the venue
Noted.
Maybe we don’t know everything about this North Carolina schedule removal. UT admin may have seen some of the things coming down with NC and the NCAA. Maybe there were some nasty recruiting practices and they took a Pat Summitt stance. What about this theory?
Interesting theory, OB. Haven’t heard that expressed before you.