The Josh Innes Show - Houston Cougars Getting Blasted For Crappy Football Attendance

Episode Date: October 6, 2026

Josh Innes is struggling to understand why the lousy attendance at Houston football games is suddenly a story. People have never gone to U of H games. Houston is not a great sports town. It's too transient. Speaking of sports in Houston, the latest ratings for the new FM sports station are out...Let's look. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I understand the cougars caught astray there. My rec league goalie says he plays for the love of the game. You gave up six goals last week, Steve? Maybe play to win, huh? Like with Bet365. I get paid the second my team goes up big with early payout and can cash out at any time before the game ends. Steve, Bet365, the home of winning early.

Must be 19 and older. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you were someone you know is concerns about gambling, visit connectsontario.ca. Or call 1866 5 through 1,2600.600. Terms and conditions apply. New from Nespresso.

Blend wellness into your coffee routine with the coffee plus range, infused with functional benefits. Choose the coffee you love with added B vitamins, like coffee plus B12 to help support immune function and coffee plus B6 to keep your day moving. Or go with the flow and choose ginseng delight. Our new double espresso with ginseng extract. Whatever lies ahead, don't change your morning. Let your morning change you.

Discover Coffee Plus on Nispresso. From morning hockey with a cup of coffee to timbits and road trips. Tim's and Canadian tire have always gone together. Now it's official. You can now earn Canadian tire money at Tim's. Link your Triangle Rewards and Tim's Rewards accounts to earn twice with every Tim's run. Terms and conditions apply. Visit timhordens.com slash triangle for details.

But the stray was warranted because nobody goes to their games. It's funny, that was actually a story that I was like in USA today, there was a USA Today's story about how nobody goes to the Houston Cougars games. Like a national story. Like, let me see here. Houston Cougars football attendance. Let me see if I can find the actual story for this. I mean, it was empty.

You could have shot a cannon through there. Let's see here. Crisis. TDCU Stadium empties. Houston Cougars announced attendance. Where's the, okay, USA Today. Oh, Christ. Headline, Houston, we have a problem.

ranked Cougars play a nearly empty stadium versus UCF. God, you've already, the Houston, we have a problem. Like, I think you should lose your credential and your job. You should lose your livelihood if you are the person responsible for writing a headline that starts with Houston, we have a problem. If you do that, you should be banished from being a media person forever. Number 20, Houston debuted some sweet space-themed uniforms for their matchup against UCF. What do those uniforms look like?

Let's see, sweet space-themed uniforms. I don't really watch any of the games, so I don't really know. So basically they're the oilers rip-off uniforms, but their helmet has a wacky space thing. Yeah, cool uniform. Guess what? People don't go to fucking football games because of the uniform. It doesn't look like that many people were there to see them in person.

The Cougars were home for their first game and their fans to, the Cougars were home for their game and their fans appeared to stay away with a sparse crowd inside TDECU Stadium on Saturday, October 3rd, a video taken of when Houston ran onto the field before kickoff showed several empty sections, not just seats. This isn't a new development. First off, people get all caught up and, oh, they're a ranked team. Rankings mean absolutely dick.

It doesn't mean anything. Like, cool, you're the number 20 team in the country. Like, neat. It's rankings. It's determined by Jemokes that are writers and shit. Who cares if you're a ranked team? That's number one. Number two, Houston is a number one.

a fickle sports town. It is an uninterested, transient sports city. Love you, but you are a transient, uninterested sports city. This is not Parochialville, USA, like Philadelphia, where it's ride or die, and if you're a fan of another team in that city, they want to run you out of there.

There's fans of thousands of different teams in Houston. That's just how it is. And Houston football will never be interesting to people. You can build them a new stadium. You can move them to the Big 12. No one gives a fuck. Basketball they care about because you're a true contender in basketball. You're a Final Four national championship contender with a real head coach that people know

and it's had success and it's basketball and one star can change it all for you. So people go to those games. Houston's the number 20 team in the country. You know what they're going to do? Nothing. No one cares. While you should typically, while you typically should wait for the game to begin to get a look at the crowd, there was no doubt a disappointing and shocking turnout for a rank team.

It's not shocking if you know that no one gives a shit about Houston football. It is a human hot day in Houston as the high for the day. It was 84 degrees with a real field temperature of 91 degrees. Houston had recent struggles with its crowd already and a mix that with an 11 a.m. local kickoff on a very warm day, and that's likely to play a role in the low attendance for Houston. Still, it's a bad look considering the Cougars had plenty of optimism going into the season. And it's been a solid start with a 3-1 record. going into the game. Folks on social media took their shots at the crowd. Look, it is a shockingly

empty stadium for just the, for the points, the reasons you made. But if you know anything about Houston football, people don't give a fuck and they will never give a fuck. If they didn't start giving a fuck when they moved to the Big 12, and yes, it's not the real Big 12. There's no Texas. There's no A&M, there's no Oklahoma. So it's not a real Big 12. It's like, you know, it's like Conference USA Plus, you know, it's like slightly elevated old school conference USA. Like, it's against UCF. No one gives a fuck. But they're never going to give a fuck. You built them a new stadium. You got them a ranked team. You're playing in the Big 12. No one cares. And nobody ever will care about Houston football. Why? I don't know. Again, the obvious reason is,

Transient city. You know, there are people and the problem is the population of Houston is filled with people who like A&M, they like Texas, they like Texas Tech, some might like TCU, some might like SMU. Oh, and by the way, it's actually like what, the largest LSU alumni base in all of the country. Like so like it's just not a place. They don't care. They don't give a fuck about the Texans. Like, bless their hearts. Like there are people that are passionate about the Texans.

more than are passionate about you of age. But like, that vibe in the stadium on Sunday had far more to do with who they were playing than the Texans themselves. If that Texans game were being played against the Colts, the Jaguars, the Bengals, whomever, that vibe wouldn't have been that way. I'm watching the game and it was vibed and it was loud and it was packed and it was fun. Well, a big reason for that, one of the main reasons for that is because of who you were playing. You were playing the Cowboys.

Like, you were more interested in the fact that you were playing the Cowboys than the fact that Texans were playing. It's just a Dallas-Hustin thing. Our fantasy commission says for him it's all about the friendships. Cute, Kevin. But I disagree. Like with Bet365. I get paid the second my team goes up big with early payout

and can cash out at any time before the game ends. No hard feelings, Kevin. Just faster payouts from Bet365. The home of winning early. Must be 19 and older. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you were someone you know is concerns about gambling,

visit connectsonetrio.ca or call 18665 through 1,2,600. Terms and conditions apply. New from Nespresso. Blend wellness into your coffee routine with a coffee plus range, infused with functional benefits. Choose the coffee you love with added B vitamins, like coffee plus B12 to help support immune function, and coffee plus B6 to keep your day moving.

Or go with the flow and choose ginseng delight. Our new double espresso with ginseng extract. Whatever lies ahead, don't change your morning. Let your morning change you. Discover Coffee Plus on Nespresso.com. Well, like all these stories I keep reading, shocking crowd at Houston football game, no one gives a fuck. It's a bad sports town.

So I was looking at, and I say that with love, right? Like when the Astros are cooking, people were going, right? I would imagine those attendance numbers are down now. That's the reason why people were booing during the playoffs. that they got bored with it. It's just how it is, man. But when they were good for the first time initially, the place was packed.

But even then, and by the way, it's baseball, so you're not going to fill up every game for baseball unless you know the 07 to 11 Phillies, which they have like a thousand sellouts in a row or something. But like you're not going to get every game sold out. That's why they did like 10 ring nights that season because they had to keep filling up the plays. So anyway, so what point?

I was about to make some sort of very interesting point that you guys would have been hard over, I swear. What was it? What was the point of that? Was it an Astros-related point? There was some goddamn point that I was going to make. And that point was going to be great, and you were going to go, oh, here's the point.

So I was looking at the Houston radio ratings. Now, granted, I only see, like, the overall thing. They call it 6-plus. That's the only numbers you can publicly post. They're called 6-plus, which means all listeners above the age of 6. that's not the key demo for sports radio. Generally speaking, the key demo for sports radio is men 2554. So I have no idea what their men 2554 numbers are,

but I assure you they're better than what the 6 plus numbers are. It's just how it works out. You have a much higher percentage of the men 2554 audience than you have of the 6 plus audience. You get the point. It's all about percentages. So I was looking at the numbers. And reminder that 610 moved to 957, I guess would have been, it was over a month ago now, right?

Like it's been close to a month or whenever they've officially moved from the AM over to the FM. And here's what's hysterical. The numbers are the exact same. Their six plus numbers are the exact same. All this hullabaloo of, oh, my God, we're moving to the FM. It's crystal clear FM. We're broadcasting, blah, blah, blah. And look, good for them.

I'd be thrilled if I was working at 610 and we went from AM to FM. It's not a negative. but they made it like it was the biggest thing that's ever happened in the fucking history of radio that, you know, this radio station moved from AM to FM. That would have been a much bigger deal 20 years ago. Now it's like, oh, what is FM radio? What is AM radio? Who cares? It's all about podcasts and YouTube and everything else.

But their numbers, at least in six plus numbers, are unmoved. What does that mean? They're still basically neck and neck currently with 790. Like it's not like it's like in Philadelphia when Philadelphia had WIP on AM they moved it to FM but it already had good numbers on AM 610 doesn't have good numbers on AM so do you think you're going to move a shitty station a shitty rated station with shitty programming to FM and it's just going to magically find an audience because you put it on FM I have a very it's not even a bold take that I have here it's a legitimate take and it's a take that I think makes sense and that take is this Sorry, I'm drinking a lot of gatorade. I had a lot of alcohol over the course of the weekend, so I'm still not recovering necessarily,

but I'm trying to get my electrolytes. I'm getting electrolyte. But point being in all of this is I look at 610, and we talked about this when they made that move, and this kind of goes into the low attendance at the U of H games, etc. when they decided to take the station the spot, which was playing, you know, Dexie's Midnight Runners and shit like that, whenever they decided to move that station, which was a pretty well-rated station,

and decided to dump that and put sports on it, it was a giant risk because you have to find a way to make up for the ratings and revenue on that AM station that you were getting. Basically, you have to take whatever money you were making on the spot. Like, let's say the spot was generating $5 million a year, and the sports was generating $4 million or $3 million. Well, now you have to basically take a station that was making $3 million, and you have to have it generate 7 or 8 million to make up for the money that was lost from the spot. And I just don't believe the ratings are going to back that up where this radio station is going to make the money it needs to make

to make it worth their while to have flipped that radio station to sports. And at least a month into it, I'm not seeing any noticeable gain in terms of the ratings. They have a 1.7 and 6 plus. You know what they had when they were 610? Like a 1.7, 1.2 or a 1. Like there's nothing about it that's a huge growth. You know, I think they were expecting at some point for this thing to just pop and be like, well, now we're on FM.

Our work here is done. We're going to magically have a five share, a six share. And they don't. And I don't think they ever will. That was always the big talking point when it was discussed whether or not you should flip any of these AM stations in Houston to FM. And mostly the sports ones. We'll focus on sports here.

Who knows what would happen if you moved, you know, KTRH to FM or whatever. They're never going to do it. it. But, you know, like, I would talk to my bosses at 790 about that all the time. I'm like, why aren't we on FM? And it was the exact reason I just told you. They said, if we were to flip you guys, first of all, there's nothing else we can put on AM, so we still have to own the AM station. So we'd basically simulcast that. So if we were to take one of our stations, the beat, the buzz, sunny, whatever, those stations all bill, $7, 8, 9 million, whatever, million dollars a year. Do you believe that a sports station is going to be able to make up for that

eight or nine million dollars on FM? Will the numbers be good enough for it? And they always told me, no. And that's why we're never going to do it. And they said, that's why 610 should never do it. And I was like, okay, I understand the point. And now you're seeing it. And who knows, that could change. It's been a month, two months, whatever. That could change. People could find it and discover it, and it'll change. But ultimately, it's the same shit they were getting when they were on AM. unless there's some sort of flaw in the metrics here, which could be true. I still don't believe that it's ever going to be a big enough windfall for them, and I think ultimately they're going to regret that move.

I'm a big believer in spoken word on radio, because that's different than what you can get on Pandora or the Iheart radio app music-wise. So it's good that you do that. It's better than Spotify. Like, give people something unique that they're not getting on those other platforms. Totally down with that. However, it better work. And I think they made a mistake with that.

And I think eventually they're going to acknowledge that. Now, you can't put the genie back in the bottle. I guess in theory you could. In theory, because you still have the AM station, they could hit a point where after a year, if it's not making the money they think it should, they could take that FM and say, fuck it, we're going back to adult hits.

We're going to go, we're going to play rap. I don't know. They could do whatever the fuck they want. I'd say that's more likely than that becoming a gigantic hit on FM. Because the city just doesn't bear it out. It's like Miami, Houston, cities like that. it's never going to be a big deal. Sports radio is never going to matter to that level.

And, and I mean this respectfully, the cast of characters they have on that radio station are not big enough personalities to make people want to listen. So I think they're going to find themselves in trouble with that. But anyway, more to come. My reg league goalie says he plays for the love of the game. You gave up six goals last week, Steve?

Maybe play to win, huh? Like with Bet365, I get paid the second my team goes up. big with early payout and can cash out at any time before the game ends. Come on, Steve. Bet 365, the home of winning early. Must be 19 and older, Ontario only. Please play responsibly.

If you were someone you know is concerns about gambling, visit connectsontario.ca or call 18665 through 1,2600. Terms and conditions apply.