North Texas uses concert series, beer garden as fan engagement tools

On the heels of North Texas officially joining the American Athletic Conference, the university announced a new naming rights deal for DATCU Stadium and a free, pregame concert series – Mean Green Live – before its six home football games this season.

“I don’t know that any of it was technically planned to happen that way, but I think it’s just in some ways good fortune of having a lot of these things merge at the same time,” North Texas vice president and athletic director Jared Mosley said.

The concerts will start three hours before kickoff, starting with a performance by Jukebox Heroes on Sept. 2 before North Texas hosts Cal. A full concert schedule is available here.

Student engagement is a primary goal.

“The easiest fans to recruit are the students that come here as freshmen and hopefully you create an experience that creates a fan from day one that when they leave here, they want to come back and relive the good old days,” Mosley said. “I just want a product that regardless of how you’re associated with UNT – when you’re in a metropolitan area like us, the entertainment value, you can go and do a lot of fun things and see a lot of great acts and concerts. But I want people when they come here to say, ‘Man, that was really cool.’

“If you’re an alum, I want people to be proud that their alma mater and their school that is at the top of their diploma, that they’ve got a sense of pride in how we do things. And that we’re doing things to a level that creates a memorable experience.”

North Texas concerts what ‘a college student would look for’

Mosley said North Texas formed a fan engagement committee, which featured a couple of current students. Fans of different age groups might have different music preferences, after all.

“The musical acts we’re bringing in and some of the DJs, it probably leans more toward what a college student would look for and the type of energy and atmosphere that they want,” Mosley said. “When you’re in a metropolitan area, you can pretty much get any genre of music or entertainment. And so our hope is that over the course of the year, we can touch a little bit of all of those things.”

Mosley said North Texas will implement a beer garden-type setup near the concert stage. Beer from Granbury, Texas-based Revolver Brewing will be available.

The athletic department is working with University of North Texas Housing, as well as the university’s Greek life organizations to “create some unique experience for them and their area where they tailgate,” according to Mosley.

“I think it’s just a little bit the beauty of North Texas,” Mosley said. “We can try something and if it fails, we can scrap it and try something new next week. I’ve encouraged our marketing staff to be creative and not afraid to go out and test some new things in order to achieve what we want to get done through these tailgates and other in-game experiences.”

North Texas hopes to schedule additional concert dates separate from home football games in order to reach a different audience that may not traditionally visit campus.

‘How quickly can we…get to the top third?’

Mosley recalled the athletic department’s first strategic plan under former athletic director Wren Baker, who now holds the same position at West Virginia.

Mosley said at the time, North Texas was in the bottom third of Conference USA’s member schools in terms of resources. The school’s winning percentage in team sports over the previous 30 years was roughly 43%.

He said in the last six years, North Texas’s collective winning percentage in those sports is just over 60%.

“The blueprint really for us going into The American is how quickly can we take our revenue and get to the top third of the American Athletic Conference?” he said. “Because we feel that that equation that worked for us elevating through Conference USA, it’s going to be similar in The American.”