An all Cal league is intriguing, but there's a strong "snob" effect from the likes of Cal, UCLA and Stanford that would not allow for such a league with San Joe State or Sac State. I can see something like the Pac-12 reforming with Cal, Stanford, Oregon State and Washington State along with the 6 schools that are going to be added in 2026, but schools like UCD and Cal Poly would really have to upgrade their athletic programs for them to be included in any football. Cal Poly is already an affiliate member in wrestling.

I think that elitist attitude that was prevalent in the old Pac10 is gone. Although, I used to laugh when Stanford, Cal, USC, and UCLA used to talk about academics but kept Arizona St in the conference. San Diego St and Fresno St are both better academic schools than ASU. There is a high probablity that the ACC pushes Stanford and Cal out when the next alignment comes about. Those programs don't want to travel to California for league game either.

I just dont know if fans care about some of these big sky teams/fcs teams, and I dont think us just being really good will make people care. I also think people dont really know what were playing for on campus. People know bowl games and college playoffs, but ive had multiple people ask me why we are not playing schools like oregon if we are in the playoffs... This year especially, I do think us being really good has brought some more support and the early games get good amounts of fans, but I just think we would boost somewhat going up.

This is not to say I think less of our big sky friends or anything, but I just think people want to come out and watch us play UNLV or SJ or Nevada consistently enough to show up more than Portland state or even a EWU. Also, getting into a bowl game that would actually be on tv instead of a playoff (as much as I like the playoff system) that doesn't even get televised for some of its games, AND confuses the hell out of people how its the D1 playoffs but then look at a bracket and see a drake or SEMO vs UC Davis. Its impossible to predict what actual turnout numbers will look like, but beyond tv viewership, things like name recognition, recruiting, level of competition, increased revenue shared, bowl game potential to win and/or play major schools, all seem like they would build excitement both in the stands and around the school generally.

If winning games and being as successful as this team is right now won't put students in the stands, how will being blown out (potentially) by UNLV, San Jose State, Air Force for 1-2 years pack them in the seats? Feels really shallow - whatever the issue is, something has to be done to turn students on to football, period. If we're not doing it now, we won't do it at the next level, that's my two cents. However, like you said, the level/name of the opponent changes, maybe this draws students out.

I agree about getting turnout to be more consistent, but I think our turnout improving and moving up do not have to be mutually exclusive. I think our turnout this year has been good overall. I'm just thinking long term plans. I think FCS turnout is a hard one to read because of the fact schools like sdsu, montana, etc happen to be in places without FBS teams, so they are the top of the totem poll in their states in a sense. I think fcs programs in California struggle a bit considering that the teams we play often have much smaller student bodies (less opposing team fans traveling to davis), inconsistent school finances (think ewu with thoughts of possibly cutting football), and that lots of people see cal/stanford (for example) as just playing a much higher level of football than us (even though I think we could beat both or one of them this year). It just seems like moving up so that in the long term we play teams of a higher caliber, with more fans, as a school with 40,000 students and lots of alumni, would get people to visit more. Also, our alumni going to games at these schools in the MW that are in large metro areas/have a lot more fans, seems more likely.

Stanford did not want ASU in the conference and there was something where someone at Stanford had given the okay but the actual AD or president said no. But allegedly USC threatened to leave the conference in 1978 after Stanford went back on their initial promise. Stanford backed down.

What is it that brings students to games these days? Do they need free shirts and other swag? Back in the day, we didn’t get anything free that i recall and the toomb on the west side was always full. The frats and sororities always had something going on for entertainment in the stands. Somehow we need the stadium to be “the place” to be on saturday night.

Our new basketball conference mates GCU have made basketball games the place to be. It can be done at Davis with football.

another thing is that as successful as this season has with the exception of the Illinois state game (which i think is a complicated issue), we had great fan support this year, and I have heard the team talked about more than ever. Its also true that I have had more people this year ask where they could watch davis games on tv and everytime I have said ESPN+ which is great that people are interested but damn it would be nice to get some more televised games.

I think its sorta a big mix of things. I think students do like free stuff, but again I think who we are playing matters a bit now adays, especially with social media. Kids seem to only talk about the sac state, montana state (because of the level of competition) or cal poly games (less because we just blow them out all the time). I think people just like going to games where they recognize the other schools name. I will say unless frat culture becomes big again (idk if it was before), or we get them to come out, thats def not a driving factor at games right now crowd wise. I mean ill be honest, experience at the game wise, the concessions that are not food trucks is like cold woodstocks pizza and beer. I think that could be better for sure. I think leaning into the tailgate would be really good, and I think (again) , playing teams with loyal, large fan bases would make us want to come out and support our team. Everyone I talked to wanted to go to the montana state game because it was a "big team" that has a lot of fans, and the environment is fun when there is some competition. idk it just is more exciting, motivating, and fun when you play big teams.

IMHO I don’t think the administration intends to rely on the students for attendance support or even to increase under this new move. What they believe (hopefully) is that these new far more well known and attractive teams will attract folks from sac, woodland, Vacaville, Fairfield and even the east bay and that they will have an impact on attendance. UC Davis students will be UC Davis students no matter what you do. I have been to many cal and Stanford games where the student section is devoid of students. So this is not a davis thing it’s a student thing. And, when you really think about it, not a bad thing. As a parent I would like my kids studying before quitting that and going to the game. Again, IMHO"………

Do you know how Grand Canyon did that?

Yeah i didnt really add enough of this perspective. The surrounding areas (both solono, north bay, sac, northern delta, etc) do not have an FBS or major conference level team. Davis from an academic and athletic standpoint IMHO could step up and provide that. I feel like GCU gets a ton cause its near a big metro, and has been aggressive in facility upgrades, a HUGE social media presence (our stuff has been getting more views too).

I'm guessing Grand Canyon has great attendance due to the rise of the mega-universities. Grand Canyon has over 100,000 enrolled online and in-person.

seriously, they are trying to do pizza from the concessions stands? That is a difficult stadium food to execute well. It’s usually cold, slow, or both. The stadium has 32 points of sale (about 330 seats per POS). Pro venues with high quality diverse offerings are like 80-100 seats per POS. To overcome that deficit they should be focused on a limited menu that can be prepared on site at high speed.

They've won 23, 24, and 30 games over the past 3 seasons. Winning always helps. They don't play in a sexy conference with "big" or "popular" schools, so it might be a combo of having an nice new(ish) arena, winning some games, and being the only game on campus?

WAC teams..
https://wacsports.com/standings.aspx?path=mbball

A few questions for you. Were many students aware there were hundreds of free tickets for the recent playoff game?

Were there signs in / around the Coffee House and Silo advertising the game?

Was there any other on campus signage or PR?

none of those things happened from what I understand, and not a single person I know knew we had free tickets until I sent them the link from this forum.

that's revisionist b.s. USC, the standard bearer of the old Pac-8, were regarded the brain surgeons, facetiously. It was Stanford then Cal a distant second. And that was it.

$$$

Very interesting thread…

Why isn’t the tweet posting

https://x.com/thesnowbelt/status/1850625431852261843?s=46

Don't be disappointed if the move to FBS is not announced after this year's FCS championship game. I saw it pointed out somewhere that the move to the MWC is not for two years yet and the Aggies will be hoping to be in the playoffs again next season. If they were to announce the move to FBS now, they would be ineligible to participate in the playoffs next season. Hopefully the announcement will come after next season's playoffs.

Need to change x.com to Twitter.com (I had the same issue before as well!)

haha, that was me... I wrote that. It was based on all the information shared in this thread (eastbayaggie's reply on page 2). But yes, it sounds like the rule really means that they would have to delay an announcement for a whole other season AT LEAST... which would give only a very small window of time to find people to open up their pocketbooks to make a stadium expansion + move happen. And remember how long it took to build the current Aggie Stadium? It would've been bigger but by the time they were done with all the back and forth, the price of steel went up and up so they had to cut down the overall size. By the way, this is all speculation. Maybe they'll stay in the Big Sky forever!

Northern Illinois to Mountain West as football only member?

https://www.si.com/college-football/northern-illinois-weighing-offer-join-mountain-west

@ucdavisaggie05 I still can’t get it to work

price of steel may go up again soon, for reasons that are probably better not mentioned here.