The one thing I will say about football attendance is that at the end of the day, football is entertainment. Davis needs to do a better job at 1. Marketing the team, and 2. Making the game day experience fun. Davis lacks in both of those areas. The proactive approach would be to market from Vallejo up to Roseville and try to get families to come. Get some pyrotechnics when the team enters. Stop being scared to spend money. Get some good food options, get better music played at the games. I went to a lot of Cal and Raiders games growing up, Davis game day atmosphere is pretty boring in comparison.

Also, I will add that I would expect another boost in attendance when Davis moves up to D1 FBS. The competition will be more marketable than playing directional schools in FBS. Davis has already set school records in attendance the last couple of years.

Lastly, the reason Stanford and CAL haven’t had great attendance or football success lately has more to do with the administration not valuing football and in turn the on the field product got bad and attendance dropped. When the couldn’t get into the BIG10 (where the schools in the BIG10 wanted to add them along with USC, UCLA, Washington, and Oregon, mbut Fox did not want to pay to add 2 additional schools schools to the TV contract) that woke up the admins and they started making sweeping changes to elevate the program. CAL already sold out of their premium seat season tickets (first time since the stadium renovation). I would expect attendance to rise significantly for CAL and Stanford.

In conclusion, the only way for Davis to continue to elevate the program is to take proactive approach. Instead of worrying about if people will come out based on the past, the school needs to market the team to get people aware of the games, improve the game day experience so people will want to keep coming back, and work donors to increase donations. Reactivity will not breed success.

Just as the goal 25 years ago was to move up to FBS from D2, the next goal after moving up to FBS is to get into a P4 conference. Most likely Big 12. Davis can do it. The school is in one of the top TV markets and has a rich alumni base. Just need success on the football field and fan turnout/ tv numbers.

I hope that Davis can get their house settlement up to the allotted $20mm. That would make the football team competitive in the FBS. I see why they want to be able to capitalize on the revenue of movie up to FBS by upgrading the stadium.

It’s no different than Davis getting large donations to fund the athletic facilities renovations. Large usually unannounced donations.

to be fair to UCLA they also have to give CAL 10 million a year because their move to the BIG10 monetarily hurt CAL. Most schools are ok with running a small deficit for sports because at the end of the day, college sports is just advertising for the university. Many schools are fighting for out of state enrollment. People can hate on SAC state all they want, but right now they have national media attention. I doubt they build a stadium with their own money. I predict they become tenants of the new soccer stadium being built. Teams aren’t funding the majority of NIL from everyday give day donations, they get them from Whales. And the amount of NIL needed to compete in the MAC, the lowest of the G6 conferences, is nowhere near the amount needed to compete in the BIG10 or ACC.

First link posted in the thread.

thanks for update.

I still don’t see give day advertised on UC Davis Athletics/ Football X(Twitter) or Instagram pages. I do see the Golf tournament that is on 4/28 (and when you look at the tickets page everything is crossed out). I don’t understand how Davis expects to compete in the NIL era if they don’t even push to get donations. 60k is on the table. It is FREE to post on IG and Twitter. Less than one week left until the end of the campaign. A lot needs to be addressed program wise before they can compete D1 Mountain West. More than just upgrading the stadium.

293 gifts to complete $60,000 challenges (two $25k challenges that need 350 total gifts and $10k challenge that needs 100 total gifts.)

Only 7 Days Left

I think this would be best answered by the vets of this message board. I just joined this year. I haven’t paid attention to any football fundraising until this year.

$5,000 challenge completed.
43 more gifts to complete $10,000 challenge.

I also notice Davis does a bad job at advertising and promoting…

We don’t know.

Four more donations to unlock $5000 challenge.

$3500 challenge completed. 13 more donors to compete $5000 challenge.

Makes zero sense.

I don’t understand why UC Davis Athletics or UC Davis football team doesn’t have this link posted on their Twitter or IG pages.

https://giveto.ucdavis.edu/schools/UniversityofCaliforniaDavis/give-day-2026/pages/athletics/football/?a=1

Here is a link. The original link still works. Maybe try another browser.

Cal social media team has been on it. Obviously due to Tosh Lupoi and increased budget. Davis needs to up their social media game as well.

yes you can donate anonymously. I just donated. I hope they advertise this well. A thread should be made for this