Excitement in Fort Worth as TCU plays in national championship. Will the money follow?
Candice Payne remembers when TCU went 1-10 during her freshman year in 1997.
She said the school had a slogan about TCU being Fort Worth’s hometown team. But, despite excitement during that season 25 years ago, the slogan felt hollow.
Not this time.
TCU’s near perfect season and historic berth into the College Football Playoff National Championship has generated a level of excitement that is perhaps unprecedented in recent memory, extending well beyond University Drive. The national spotlight on TCU during the Fiesta Bowl on Dec. 31 and ahead of Monday’s battle for the title against Georgia is acquainting tens of millions of people with Fort Worth’s hometown university.
TCU’s dream season is also being felt economically across Fort Worth.
Home games in the 2022 season contributed to a 35% increase in hotel revenue and 23% increase visitor spending, according to statistics compiled by Visit Fort Worth.
The economic impact means jobs, economic development and innovation, Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker said in a statement provided by a university spokesperson.
The excitement is spreading to newcomers in Tarrant County who may not have even known before where TCU was.
Downtown high rises and streetlights have been aglow in TCU purple. Horned Frog T-shirts and caps have flown off store shelves. Google searches around the country in recent days have spiked for “Where is TCU,” “What does TCU stand for” and “What does a horned frog look like?”
Payne, who is TCU’s assistant vice chancellor of finance and was recently browsing gear at a university bookstore, has noticed the excitement.
“They light up downtown purple, you wear purple on Fridays, and so I think the city has really embraced the university more,” she said.
While it’s still early in the university’s admission cycle, there has been a 31% increase in early decision applicants picking TCU as their first choice, according to a TCU spokesperson. Visits to the university’s website have also increased exponentially.
Visit Fort Worth CEO Bob Jameson said the national spotlight presents an amazing opportunity to tell Fort Worth’s story.
“The chief challenge in creating economic impact is raising the city’s profile, and this helps us do that,” he said.
Nearly 27 million people watched TCU upset Michigan in the Fiesta Bowl on New Year’s Eve. Jameson notes that even more viewers will tune into the national championship game Monday night in Los Angeles.
Jameson also noted that next season, TCU’s home game on Sept. 2 against Colorado University will be the first game for the Buffaloes’ new head coach, the Dallas Cowboys great Deion Sanders.
That game should get a lot of national attention, too, and bring visitors to Fort Worth to watch, Jameson said.
Chris Strayer of the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce says TCU’s success could help attract new companies to Fort Worth. Businesses looking to relocate take into consideration a number of factors.
“But if they don’t know we’re around, it doesn’t really help us,” he said.
Strayer, who worked in Columbus, Ohio, before coming to Fort Worth, said the success of the Ohio State University football team made that city a “bigger dot on the map.”
TCU could do the same for Fort Worth.
Fans, including members of the Fort Worth City Council who are reveling in the excitement of the national championship, say they believe the community is rallying around TCU in a way they haven’t seen before.
Fort Worth isn’t a traditional college town, like an Athens, Chapel Hill or even Austin. Historically, you’re most likely to see purple and white paraphernalia in older Fort Worth neighborhoods closest to campus.
But there have been many examples in recent days of TCU fever.
Julie Hoover, who works in the university’s post office, noted the camaraderie she felt with other TCU fans cheering the team at the Fiesta Bowl in Phoenix.
“I feel like I have 500 new friends, because everyone’s so excited,” she said.
Council member Elizabeth Beck, who represents the city’s urban core, including parts of campus, said she had a similar experience on a road trip back from Big Bend over the holiday weekend.
Beck said she saw people with TCU stickers on their cars honking at each other and throwing up the school’s hand sign.
“Even in the middle of nowhere in West Texas, you can feel the excitement,” she said.
TCU’s football team and the city of Fort Worth share a similar underdog mentality, said council member Michael Crain, who represents west Fort Worth and parts of TCU’s campus.
Fort Worth is the 13th largest city in the country, but some people think we’re the 44th, Crain said.
People don’t realize how big Fort Worth is, just like they didn’t realize how good the Horned Frogs would be this season, he said.
TCU Chancellor Victor Boschini on Thursday said the public reaction to the team’s success has been overwhelming.
“I can’t even go to Tom Thumb without people saying stuff. It’s been crazy,” he said.
TCU has always had a lot of support in Fort Worth, Boschini said, but this season has cemented its place as the hometown team among newer residents.
While the tangible impacts of the championship season have yet to be calculated, Boschini said, the added attention will help the university grow by attracting new faculty and staff while also improving school spirit.
“It’s always been a positive glass half full kinda place, but now I say it’s a glass full play because everyone is just like high on all this,” he said.
It’s also made admission more competitive as more prospective students apply to a university with a population cap of 12,000 students.
The board of trustees voted during its 2022 retreat loosen the cap to slowly grow the student population.
Boschini didn’t specify how much the university would loosen the cap other than to say it wouldn’t be adding 1,000 additional students places per year despite having the applicant pool to do so.
He stressed it was important the school not grow too fast so as to not lose the sense of community and connection between the university’s students, faculty and staff.
He referenced his experience working at large universities and smaller colleges, noting those with larger populations didn’t have the same community feel as TCU.
“I don’t know where you lose that after 12,000, but we’re going to try to find that out,” he said.
This story was originally published January 6, 2023 at 1:12 PM with the headline "Excitement in Fort Worth as TCU plays in national championship. Will the money follow?."
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