In Reply to: UCLA’s no-show fans deliver first loss of season for unbeaten team posted by mh on October 18, 2026 at 13:02:32
but this is pretty pathetic.
I can only based it off when I was there, but there was no effort by the school to engender school spirit. And, there was even a time, like 15 years ago, when UCLA's in game ad spot was a kid with a skateboard, and the ad said (paraphrasing): come to UCLA. It's in LA. You can do stuff. And, no one is bugging you, man.
From what I can tell, there's no effort to engender school pride. At least there wasn't 40 years ago, and that doesn't seem to have changed.
Pauley is often an echo chamber. My niece went to Mich State. They had a lottery for the student section, which was free to enter, but you had to commit to going to some super high percentage of the games. People were super motivated to get that ticket.
I don't know what the school can do to generate that rahrah spirit, but whatever it is, they ain't. Maybe Frenk will change that. I've relayed this before, but my wife was doing physical therapy next to a UCLA women's soccer player. Wife said "Oh, do you go to the football games?" Soccer player said "I don't go to the football games, they're losers." Nice.
Watching the full student section on TV last night, my comment was that will take like 10 years to pay off.
If the school wants fans, they have to court fans.
And, I think that's the one thing that might get Chez to walk, when the offers inevitably start coming around. Go to a school with an actual fan base.
That said, I went to the women's hoops semifinal in Phoenix, and UCLA fans were by far the dominant fans in the house. Go figure.