Officials: More than 5,000 attended football game

The first Eastern New Mexico University football game in the new Greyhound stadium was a resounding success with more than 5,000 people in attendance, according to university officials.

ENMU Vice President of Business Affairs Scott Smart guessed that the stadium had between 5,000 and 5,500 people for its inaugural game.

“The box score that was posted out on the football website indicated that the number of people that showed up was 4,200. The game was sold out before it started, and we were selling standing room only tickets the day of the game, so

I’m thinking that that number’s not accurate,” Smart said.

The university would not be able to compile revenue numbers for the game until Tuesday, according to Smart.

ENMU President Steven Gamble said that, despite some minor logistical issues, the game ran smoothly.

“I think everything worked. We have some issues with noise containment so we don’t disturb the neighborhoods nearby. Parking; we’re going to have to work on the parking lots and we realize that, and we will. Everything else seemed to function extremely well,” he said.

Smart also said the parking lot became overcrowded for the game, but ENMU would adjust their operations accordingly.

“I think the one thing everybody needs to remember: This was a special event, and I suspect that the crowd around this is going to be much larger than a normal game. We have a football game this Friday, and I think that that’ll give us a better feel for what a normal game is going to be like,” he said. “We have lots of space out there; it’s just a matter of getting everything in the right spot, and we knew we were going to have to do some of that as well.”

The new stadium also brought with it a new feature: Tailgating before games, which Gamble said was almost incident-free.

“I figured it would be orderly, and I figured it would be well conducted, and I figured the people would have a good time, and that’s exactly how it went. We only had one incident identified with tailgating, and it was very minor,” he said.

According to Smart, the first game’s success came in part from planning on the university’s part.

“Planning’s always paramount. The more that you can get together and try to plan for things is extremely helpful. I think all parties did a great job of trying to figure out what we needed to plan for and try to have a process in place to deal with it, and that all seems to have worked out very well,” said Smart.