In Reply to: Is Chesney enough to get you back inside the stadium? posted by ClockBlocker on December 03, 2025 at 10:21:52
I still think that seating reconfiguration thing Mora had Ucla do was one of the biggest mistakes Ucla ever made. Attendance starting going down and visiting teams fans were taking over the sunny side of the stadium and that was what was being seen on TV.
Even when Kelly was hired, which was supposedly the big splash hire, those numbers weren't doing anything dramatic. I went to the Oklahoma game in Kelly's first or second year and Oklahoma was a top 10 team with Jalen Hurts and the place was a ghost town as far as Ucla fans. It was all Oklahoma. Ucla had a very young DTR, but there still should have been some interest. Even the Ucla/$c games were a shell of what they used to be.
The nail in the coffin was Chip Kelly leaving in Feb/March for OSU when Ucla was getting ready to head into the first year of the B10 schedule. I really like Foster, but he was a bandaid at the time. There should have been some excitement had Kelly stayed at least one more year or given Ucla a chance to hire someone legit.
Chesney (unless it's Kenny Chesney) isn't going to fill the stadium itself, but it's definitely a starting point.
Personally, SoFi would actually be much easier for me to attend since I fly, but I hate NFL stadiums for college games. I'd much rather be at the Rose Bowl. I would like to see more day or late afternoon games. Night games are difficult. And Ucla needs to get started on a major marketing campaign to get people back or new people interested.