Aggies fans, I hope everyone is doing well and had a happy and safe holiday weekend.
I am going to have several columns this week leading up to the Hawaii game. I will tell you that I am waiting for Timmy Chang to have a press conference. Once I have that, we’re going to do the Press Conference Rap Battle: Chang vs. Sanchez. I’ll also have more stuff available to subscribers, and more importantly, we’re going to preview the game and learn a lot about our upcoming opponent, the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors.
Then we head into the bye week before the UNM game, and I’m looking forward to that because I’m going to have a couple of days off.
Today, I want to tell you about an honoree from New Mexico State’s defense following the Aggies’ big win against Mercyhurst. I also mentioned that I was going to cover the new game-day experience at Aggie Memorial Stadium, and that column is ready as well.
In early August, New Mexico State put out a news release touting an “enhanced game day experience.” For total transparency, I saw similar releases from Ball State and the University of Pittsburgh, so this is not something unique to New Mexico State. Every stadium has its flaws. Every operation has its quirks.
I’ve been going to Aggie Memorial Stadium for going on 15 years. I’ve seen the play on the field go from bad to worse to great to good, while the game-day experience has remained pretty much the same. With the boldness of some of the improvements stated in that news release, Saturday was the first opportunity to actually put those claims to the test, and I graded them the same way I would grade anything else.
That is a very long column, but it is honest. It is directed toward the athletics department because I want them to hear not just my voice — because my voice isn’t the important one here — but the voices of my readers and their fans. Those are ultimately the people paying the money to go to these games.
But we love New Mexico State. We love the Aggies, and I love covering them for you. Part of that love is being willing to say something when you see something, and that is what the column is there for.
In the meantime, I also want to remind everyone that AGGREGATOR is a reader-supported publication. Without your support of AGGREGATOR, New Mexico State would have very little independent local coverage right now. There is no dedicated New Mexico State football beat reporter at the Las Cruces Sun-News. The Las Cruces Bulletin primarily carries articles written by New Mexico State’s athletics department along with what is basically paid promotional content for New Mexico State — an infomercial, if you will.
And how do I know that? Because I have done similar work for other universities during the last year. It is what it is.
What I give you is the best writing and coverage that I possibly can. I want to thank the four new paid subscribers who have signed up since Saturday. Your support is important to me, and I will work my tail off to make sure you get as much content and as much bang for your buck as I can possibly give you.
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Nick Session Wins CUSA Defensive Player of the Week
It goes without saying that Nick Session has had a heck of a start to the 2026 season.
The senior safety from Gardena, California, has done a tremendous job through his first two games and has already lit up the stat sheet. Against the Florida State Seminoles in the season opener, Session intercepted an Ashton Daniels pass and finished with seven total tackles, including five solo tackles.
Then came Mercyhurst.
Session finished with four solo tackles, three assisted tackles and a pass defended, but the biggest play came almost immediately. On Mercyhurst’s first play of the game, Session intercepted the pass and took it back for a touchdown, giving New Mexico State a 7-0 lead just 14 seconds into the game.
Because of that performance, Conference USA named Session its Defensive Player of the Week. He was one of only two C-USA players to record a pick-six over the weekend, and he is one of just seven players in all of FBS football with multiple interceptions this early in the season.
There is also something much bigger happening with this New Mexico State defense under defensive coordinator Joe Morris. The Aggies have now forced at least one turnover in 18 consecutive games, a streak that dates back to the 2024 season.
That is huge for an Aggies team that has famously given the football away far too many times and lost plenty of games because of it. This defense continues to create turnovers and give its offense a little more of a shot, and Session has become one of the most important pieces of that defense.
Two games into the season, Nick Session is off to an all-conference-caliber start. He has become an important part of this defense, and the Aggies are better for having him.
Congratulations, Nick. You’ve done well.
Image courtesy of New Mexico State’s X account. Video courtesy of ESPN.
Grading NMSU’s “Enhanced” Aggie Memorial Stadium Game-Day Experience
The one thing I was excited about going back to Aggie Memorial Stadium wasn’t just the football — because you know how much I love football. I was also excited to see what was described in an August 4 news release as an elevated football game day coming to Aggie Memorial Stadium, including what New Mexico State Athletics called an “enhanced football game day experience.” It was unveiled as a series of fan-focused enhancements designed to elevate the game-day experience at Aggie Memorial Stadium during the 2026 season.
For what it is worth, Ball State, Joe Fields’ Alma Mater, Syracuse, and Pitt all have done similar things this year.
Of course, there was a long survey that New Mexico State Athletics put out at the end of 2025, immediately after the season was over.
This was a screenshot from my survey.
The assumption was that things were going to be improved, and when all of this was announced, I was happy these conversations were being had. Everything about life is customer service.
Whether it’s going to McDonald’s, Walmart, a hotel, flying on an airline or going to a football game, it’s about customer service. I have a column I used to call Consumer Beast that a lot of you subscribe to. I’m actually going to rebrand it pretty soon, but the bones of that column were always about how businesses and customers interact, the ethics involved and everything surrounding that relationship. There’s a little bit of media ethics in there as well.
Ultimately, though, the reason that column existed was to talk about what happens when someone communicates from a position of authority: We’re going to fix things. We’re going to make things right for you. So when New Mexico State announced an enhanced game-day experience designed to bring fans an exceptional experience at Aggie Memorial Stadium, there were several bullet points in that announcement that I wanted to grade myself.
And I’m going to give you my fair and honest grade.
A lot of people seem to think I am very frustrated with the lack of direction at New Mexico State University. In some aspects, I am. In others, I’m actually looking forward to where things are going. But in my experience as a consumer advocate, you don’t just say things to make people happy. You do things.
Digital ticketing through Blocktickets for a faster and more convenient entry experience
GRADE: 8.0/10
This was one of the things I was most skeptical about, and I’m going to give it an 8.0 out of 10 because I personally had absolutely no problem doing it. We downloaded the tickets on our phones. My wife transferred a set of tickets to my phone, I added them to Apple Wallet, and when it was time for me to go into the stadium, the ticket reader read my phone perfectly. It beeped, and I was free to go through.
BTW, I dunno if the retro NM State logo is on purpose or not. If it was a nod to the past, cool.. But I did wonder, “Did someone just google “NM State Logo” and got the first one they saw?"
But while we were walking in through the magnetometers — which, funny enough, I’ll get to in a minute — we were in front of the family of kicker Ilya Uvaydov. He did not have the greatest game Saturday, but he did hit six of seven extra points, and his family was excited to be at the game. They had printed tickets, which Blocktickets allows you to do with a QR code that can then be scanned at the gate.
The ticket reader simply would not read Ilya Uvaydov’s family’s tickets. The person at the gate scanned them several times, tried again, and nothing was going through. Eventually, the person just let them go through, and I’m glad they did because good customer service means knowing that when you have a technological failure like that, you need contingencies.
Note: They were directly in front of me, so I didn’t have a convo with them, but I saw the whole thing.
I also had more than one person message me, independently of what I saw with Ilya’s family, about not being able to scan the QR code from a printed ticket. And yes, it could be print quality. It could be how dark the QR code printed. It could be the way the sun was hitting the paper when they tried to scan it. There are a million things that can go wrong.
It just felt like fate that I happened to see that exact situation play out right in front of me. My personal experience was flawless, and I probably would have given digital ticketing a 10 out of 10 had I not seen how flustered the ticket taker became while trying to scan Ilya’s family’s printed tickets.
Expanded stadium entry points to help reduce wait times
GRADE: 7.0/10
I didn’t walk around the entire stadium to inspect all of the different entry points, so I’m going to take their word for it that they were expanded. But I will tell you one thing: The way we were funneled through the entrance next to the Fulton Center was not flawless by any means. It actually felt more condensed.
I go through that particular entrance probably 90% of the time, and this time it felt different — and not in a good way. There may have been more entry points throughout the stadium, but at least where I entered, I didn’t experience an improvement.
Directional signage throughout the stadium to help fans easily navigate entrances, amenities and seating areas
GRADE: 10/10
I’m giving this one a 10 out of 10. I noticed the paint job around Aggie Memorial Stadium, certain areas had clearly been repainted, and some of the signage, including concession signs, was bolder and easier to notice. I also noticed fresh coats of paint on certain things.
I’m an attention-to-detail type of person, and I noticed it. This one gets the full 10 out of 10.
Modernized entry gates featuring upgraded magnetometers for more efficient stadium access
GRADE: 3.0/10
Here’s the first real issue I had, and there are more than several people who would be willing to vouch for the extended wait times getting into the stadium. The two magnetometers at the south entrance by the Fulton Center were essentially set up in a single-file flow. Everyone walked through, and if something beeped, there was an expanded secondary review area with tables on either side of the magnetometers.
Someone like me is going to beep. I carry a metal stadium seat, and I have a stainless-steel wallet from an endorsement I had through one of the content things I used to do back in the day. I beep almost every single time I go through security somewhere, and secondary checking is something I’m used to. I’ve lived with it, and I’m fine with it.
We got there at 6:18 p.m. — 42 minutes before kickoff — and the line was already developing relatively quickly. You could tell there was a hiccup in the way people were being filtered through, and there was already a holdup with some people in front of me using crutches or canes. Remember how this particular enhancement was advertised: upgraded magnetometers for more efficient stadium access. (Here’s a timestamp of my photo)
In practice, it was quite the other way around. Las Cruces can be a notoriously late-arriving crowd, so seeing that kind of line more than 40 minutes before kickoff stood out. The way the two magnetometers were positioned, combined with the expanded secondary review areas with tables on either end, made the whole thing feel clunky.
I beeped because I had a metal stadium seat, but I didn’t go through a secondary review because everything I had was right there in front of me. I’m not saying I wanted to get frisked or that I wanted somebody to thoroughly wand me. That’s not the point, and I don’t care about that. But let’s not pretend we were getting into the stadium faster, because we were not.
The diehards who go to Aggie Memorial Stadium regularly understand what the old process was like. It was awkward as hell before, too, but there was at least somewhat of a flow to it. This one was feng shuied in a way that made it look efficient, but it was horribly inefficient as the line expanded all the way down that parking lot by the Fulton Center.
One other thing really drove this point home for me. I went to see Godsmack at Speaking Rock Casino in El Paso the next night, and there were about 10,000 people at that concert — more people than the announced attendance at Aggie Memorial Stadium on Saturday. Speaking Rock was using the exact same type of magnetometers New Mexico State had. (didn’t get a photo of them, but they were new from the last time I was there)
The difference was the flow. Speaking Rock had a couple of different security entry points, and 10,000 people moved through them pretty smoothly. I’m not saying Speaking Rock security is somehow better at what it does than the people working security at Aggie Memorial Stadium. That’s not the point of the comparison. The point is that simply having new magnetometers doesn’t automatically make entry more efficient.
If New Mexico State wants to say new magnetometers are part of the enhanced game-day experience, then cool. They’re new magnetometers. But let’s not pretend they made it easier or faster to get into Aggie Memorial Stadium Saturday, because they did not.
Enhanced Wi-Fi throughout the stadium to improve connectivity
GRADE: INCOMPLETE
Personally, I did not see any signs advertising free Wi-Fi. Now, I also wasn’t actively looking for free Wi-Fi, and trust me, as someone who has been covering Aggies football for four seasons now, I have never even been able to get press box Wi-Fi access for my phone. That said, I don’t really need it.
I had 5G coverage from Verizon on my main phone and 5G coverage from Xfinity Mobile on my burner phone. Yes, I carry two phones with me. But I didn’t notice anything different when it came to Wi-Fi.
If there were more cell towers, portable cell towers or some other connectivity improvement somewhere around the stadium that I simply didn’t see, then cool. But I can only grade what I actually experienced, and nothing about connectivity stood out to me Saturday night as being different from previous seasons.
Maybe the next time I go, I’ll find public Wi-Fi that is accessible to an Aggies guest, connect to it and discover that it works fast and efficiently. If so, by all means, I’m all for it. But Saturday night, it wasn’t anything that drove home an enhanced in-game experience for me.
New digital video boards in all four corners of the end zones, enhancing visibility and elevating the in-game atmosphere
GRADE: 9.0/10
First of all, enhancing visibility for what? I’m not entirely sure what they’re talking about there. As for “elevating the in-game atmosphere,” I’ll tell you what the new digital boards were doing most of the time: running advertisements.
They’re the type of digital advertising boards you’ll see at a FIFA soccer match, an Aggies basketball game or an NBA game. They provide another place for in-game advertising, which gives New Mexico State Athletics another way to generate revenue, and I am not knocking that. I literally do not care. Make your money.
People noticed the boards. Don’t get me wrong. You knew they were there, and aesthetically, I thought they looked good. I particularly liked the little scoreboards on top of the Fulton Center. That was a nice touch that made the stadium look a little more professional.
We’re all aware of University Stadium in Albuquerque still having that 1980s-era red-numbered scoreboard sitting on the side of the UNM football stadium by their Tow Diehm complex. It’s old, it’s ugly, and I cannot believe they haven’t replaced that thing to this day. So our little video boards are fine.
But don’t pretend that digital advertising boards are somehow transforming my experience as a fan. They’re advertisements. They give New Mexico State another product to sell to sponsors, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. As someone who has sponsors for his own content, I understand it. As someone who participates in a lot of focus groups where companies literally send me advertisements and ask me to put my two cents in, I understand the value of advertising.
They look good. They modernize the stadium. They create another revenue opportunity. They’re advertisements, and that’s fine.
Expanded concession options, including new grab-and-go locations on the Aggie Bridge, providing quicker service and greater variety
GRADE: 9.0/10
I think this was my favorite enhancement of all. The grab-and-go was nicely done, it was simple, and it didn’t have too much selection, which I actually think works for something designed around getting in, grabbing something and getting out. There was a row of Pepsis, water, chips, a couple of other things and a self-checkout counter.
I think that’s cool. That’s bringing Aggie Memorial Stadium into the 21st century, and I am 100% fine with it. So why a 9 instead of a 10? Two reasons.
First, the prices.
Five dollars for a bottle of water? Okay. I’m not happy about it, but if I need water, I’ll pay five bucks. Five dollars for a Pepsi? Same thing. I’m at a football game. I understand there’s going to be a markup.
But five dollars for one of those tiny bags of potato chips? Come on. I’m talking about those little mini bags that used to be 25 cents at the grocery store. Since COVID, I’ve watched them become two for a dollar or maybe 65 cents apiece, depending on where you shop. Going from roughly 65 cents at retail to five dollars inside Aggie Memorial Stadium is an enormous markup, especially considering this is supposed to be a self-service operation.
At that point, it feels like you’re paying for the overhead of the entire grab-and-go stand with the bag of chips in your hand. I’m not a fan of that. It’s price gouging. The prices need to be more affordable.
Second, the location and awareness.
Even though New Mexico State specifically promoted the new grab-and-go locations on the Aggie Bridge, I saw no one actually using them 30 minutes prior to kickoff. Maybe they got busier later?
I’m genuinely curious what the sales numbers were Saturday night, and I’m going to try to find that out.
I also think putting a grab-and-go location on the south end of the stadium would be a good idea. There’s plenty of empty space around there, and it would give fans on that side of Aggie Memorial another option without forcing them toward one of the most congested parts of the stadium.
I say that as someone who enters from the south side and almost never goes to the Aggie Bridge. I don’t go beyond my section very often because that area gets really congested, and frankly, I have no business being over there most of the time. I’m certainly not going to walk all the way over there just to use the grab-and-go.
Although, to be completely fair, I’m probably not buying anything anyway. I’m not someone who buys a lot of concessions. I have my own snack foods. I’ll just leave it at that.
But there’s a larger customer-service point here: People don’t read these news releases. The hardcores do, and people like me talk about them, but the average fan walking into Aggie Memorial Stadium isn’t studying an August 4 New Mexico State Athletics news release to learn that there’s a new grab-and-go location on the Aggie Bridge.
They’re going to do what they’ve been doing for 40 years. They’re going to walk up to the concession stand they already know, and those traditional concession stands were still crazy busy. When I walked into the stadium around 6:20 p.m., I noticed some long lines. I also heard complaints throughout the game and in the couple of days afterward about how long people were waiting.
To be fair, those concession lines have always been that way, so I wouldn’t say anything necessarily got worse. But it didn’t get better, either.
One person sitting in my section went to get popcorn for his kids with about 13 minutes remaining in the third quarter. He didn’t get back until around the five-minute mark. That’s roughly eight minutes of football missed waiting for popcorn, and if you watched Saturday’s game, you know those weren’t eight meaningless minutes. The Aggies were scoring points and basically turning the game around while this dude was somewhere waiting for popcorn for his kids.
There were also some other concession options, including Papas Locas, and I saw some things around the stadium that I hadn’t seen before. I was happy to see that. The actual selection wasn’t some massive transformation, but there were some new options, and the grab-and-go concept itself was a legitimate improvement.
Of course, you also had the dudes walking around the stadium selling beer and water out of buckets. Those guys always do a good job, and I’m going to come back to them later because I have one little nitpick while they do an amazing job.
But if the purpose of grab-and-go is to provide quicker service and take some pressure off those traditional concession lines, you have to put it where people naturally walk, and you need better signage telling people that it exists. Put one on the south end. Put up better signs directing people to the Aggie Bridge locations. Make the alternative obvious.
The concept is good. The execution is good. It’s something that actually makes Aggie Memorial Stadium feel a little more modern. Now get people to use it, and bring that five-dollar bag of chips back down to Earth.
Additional restroom facilities to improve fan comfort and convenience
GRADE: 7.0/10
I’m going to give this one a 7 out of 10, with the disclaimer that I am probably the worst person in Aggie Memorial Stadium to grade the bathrooms. I don’t use the restroom at public places. If I know I’m going to be in a situation where I need to use the restroom a lot, I’m probably not going to the game, so I am absolutely not the clientele for this particular enhancement.
But I have a lot of seniors and a lot of women who sit around me, and you can’t help but notice when people have to get up and take care of things when nature calls. Restrooms are also one of those things that can make a surprisingly big first impression at any public venue. You may not think about them when everything works, but you certainly notice when they don’t.
I tell a story about my experience at BofA that involves public restrooms that happened 17 years ago that closed down our restrooms to the public for years and was traumatic to me. I will leave it at that.
As far as what was actually “additional,” I didn’t see new permanent bathrooms or anything that dramatically changed the restroom situation. What I noticed when I walked in were different-colored porta-potties than I’m accustomed to seeing at Aggie Memorial. Maybe it’s a new company. Maybe there were more of them. I don’t know.
Personally, it’s fine. I don’t really care because it doesn’t affect me. I don’t have kids with me. I don’t have an elderly person I need to help navigate the stadium. I can hold my waste until I get home. Sorry to sound so crude, but that’s the truth.
So my own experience can only tell you so much here. I do, however, have some comments from people who actually used the restroom facilities Saturday night, and those are probably considerably more useful than anything I can tell you.
New video boards in the tailgate area, creating a more engaging and connected pregame atmosphere
GRADE: INCOMPLETE
I have no clue. I didn’t go over there, I don’t tailgate, and I don’t know what New Mexico State had playing on the new video boards. I’m not going to pretend to grade something I didn’t experience.
If somebody who was in the tailgate area wants to tell me what was on those screens, cool. I’d actually like to know. If they’re simply more screens running advertisements, though, I’m not sure I’m buying the idea that this creates some dramatically more “engaging and connected pregame atmosphere.”
Putting advertisements on TV screens and calling something everybody has an enhancement isn’t where I want to be with this. If there’s some interactive component to them, live information, fan engagement or something else that actually adds to the tailgating experience, then I’m fine with it. But I wasn’t there, so I don’t know.
Weekly “Know Before You Go” email with traffic patterns, game-day timelines and digital-ticket downloading instructions
GRADE: 7.0/10
I’ve said this a million times: If you need to tell people how to download their tickets before every single game, you’re eventually going to have a problem. Whatever. That’s fine. I know how to download mine, I did it, they’re on my phone, and I don’t have to worry about it again until next year.
The rest of the concept is fine. Traffic patterns can change. Game-day timelines can change. There may be something unusual happening around the stadium that fans genuinely need to know before they leave home. That is exactly the kind of information a “Know Before You Go” email should contain.
But if every week becomes another email telling people what they can’t bring into the stadium, what time the game starts, when the gates open and how to download a ticket, people are eventually going to stop reading it. That’s what happens with repetitive communication. You beat people over the head with the same information enough times, and eventually it becomes background noise.
The weekly “Know Before You Go” needs to adapt with the times and, more importantly, adapt to that particular game. Tell me what is different this week. Tell me about a road closure, something happening on campus or whether an entrance has changed. Tell me something I actually need to know that I didn’t already know last Saturday.
We’ve only gotten one of these emails so far, so I’m not going to judge the entire concept based on the first one. We’ll see what the second one looks like, and I’ll let you know whether it actually evolves from week to week or whether it’s essentially the same email over and over again. Period. End of story.
Upgraded bar-top experience in the Athletic Director’s Patio
GRADE: INCOMPLETE
I’ll never be there. I’ll never go there. There is nothing about the Athletic Director’s Patio that affects my personal game-day experience, so I have absolutely no notes.
Maybe it’s fantastic. Maybe the people who use it love it. I genuinely have no idea, and I’m not going to grade something I will probably never experience.
Some credit where credit is due
Before I get into my nitpicks, I do want to compliment New Mexico State on some of the little things I noticed around Aggie Memorial Stadium. They repainted the seat numbers, and I noticed it on my seats. I also noticed paint work on the walls surrounding the stadium as we walked to our section, including walls painted crimson. Is it the shiniest, fanciest thing in the world? No. But it looks a hell of a lot better than it did.
Now for my nitpicks — and what other fans told me
I’ve already told you about the magnetometers. That did not go smoothly whatsoever, and plenty of people let me know they had concerns about getting into the stadium as well. But the most consistent complaints I heard afterward involved things that are much less glamorous than digital video boards and new technology: bathrooms, trash, entry lines and basic stadium operations.
One person in a social media group described the women’s restroom on the east side of Aggie Memorial, just south of the concession stands:
“Several stall doors did not work in the women’s restroom and the ventilation wasn’t working. It was like a sauna after halftime. There was about an inch of water on the floor and trash everywhere.”
Obviously, I wasn’t in the women’s restroom, so I can’t personally verify what it looked like. But the overflowing-trash part of that complaint absolutely caught my attention because I saw that problem myself elsewhere.
When we left after the game, we had water bottles we wanted to throw away. The trash can immediately in front of us in our section was overflowing to the point where I want you to picture a trash can on Fremont Street in Las Vegas on a Friday night when they’re giving away 50-cent beers. It was that level, and I didn’t like it.
OK, That is LV Boulevard and not Fremont, but you get my point.
If you see a trash bag is full, you take the trash bag out and put another one in. I don’t know how many staffers are working during the game, and I’m not pretending to know the logistics behind it, but these are the little things people remember.
I spent 15 years in banking. At Bank of America, my performance and the condition of my branch were constantly being graded. The whole banks performance review once got dinged because the toilet paper in the women’s restroom at my bank wasn’t two-ply. I did not supply the toilet paper, and I still got in trouble from corporate. So believe me, I understand why somebody notices the condition of a bathroom.
That same fan also described problems simply getting inside:
“It took 20 minutes to buy tickets. There was little to no clear signage and we were directed to a student-only gate. Meanwhile, the general-admission entrance had only two lines stretching about a block.”
The person was appreciative of the employees who were working hard, but made another point that stuck with me:
“The issues I saw aren’t things that should require millions of dollars to fix. They’re basic stadium operations and maintenance issues that should be addressed now.”
And remember something important about Las Cruces: This is a walk-up crowd.
Another AGGREGATOR reader told me:
“The men’s bathroom on the west side by Section G was disgusting. Water was flooding from the floor out its door. What the heck? Also, why did it take so long for fans to get inside the gates?”
But that same reader went out of the way to compliment somebody:
“The employee selling water and beer in Section G was awesome. He was polite and kept the water bottles well stocked.”
That’s important, too. If I’m going to tell you what people complained about, I’m also going to tell you when they went out of their way to compliment somebody.
Another person brought up something I’ve noticed myself:
“NMSU safety department and Sodexo need to install safety rails in all stairs, both upper and lower levels. I have seen older folks almost fall because they cannot balance themselves. It’s dangerous and will happen one day.”
There are a lot of older people in my section, and I see the hesitation when some of them are trying to get to their seats. Sometimes it takes them three times as long because they’re having difficulty shifting themselves around and maintaining their balance. I’m 43 and still nimble, so it doesn’t bother me. One day it might, and I absolutely understand why somebody is asking for handrails.
Other fans agreed with the overall criticism. One told me:
“We deserve much better as season-ticket holders, as Aggies fans.”
A very prominent New Mexico State personality also said:
“I totally agree.”
Another woman described what she found when she went to the restroom shortly after kickoff:
“I went to the restroom right after the game started and I was surprised how dirty it was, not to mention a few toilets already looking clogged. It was hot and they had a recycling bin in there already filled with paper towels.”
She also complained about how heavily people were being pushed toward the app to purchase tickets, which she didn’t find particularly user-friendly when trying to purchase more than one ticket.
Another longtime fan put the priorities more simply:
“Concentrate on the fan experience first: better seats, concession stands, bathroom facilities. For the record, I attended the very first game in the stadium. Not a lot has changed for the normal fan since then.”
And another fan was disappointed with the ushering in Section F:
“The usher in Section F was not checking tickets. She didn’t check our tickets, and when we got to our seats there were people sitting in our seats.”
Interestingly enough, nobody checked my ticket when I got to my section, either. Nobody was sitting in my seat, so it didn’t become a problem for me, but I noticed it.
One last nitpick: If we’re cashless, we’re cashless, but be cognizant of how a lot of people in this town function.
This one is more personal because it intersects with something I actually know a hell of a lot about. I was told Aggie Memorial Stadium was cashless. The concession stands are cashless. The grab-and-go is cashless. We hear the same language major stadiums use: We are a cashless venue.
Yet we have a guy walking around with a bucket full of beers and waters, and from what I personally observed, he was dealing in cash. Again, I don’t buy beer or water at the game, so this doesn’t affect me personally. But I watched one guy buy an $8 beer, hand the vendor a $20 bill, immediately receive $12 back and then hand the guy $2 as a tip. It was efficient as hell. It was also cash.
And this is where I’m going to say something directly to AD Fields and anybody else working in New Mexico State Athletics. Forget about me being an Aggies fan with complaints. Forget about me having a platform as a writer. I was a banker for 15 years. And this point I am making is… touchy to say the least, but I know it because I know my bank clients, and there are people on this mailing list who know my old work.
And if I have to show you my ancestry, I will. I’m a Mexican-American man — or, according to my ancestry results, at least 28-point-something percent Mexican. The majority of me is Spanish. I’ve even got 1% Cameroonian in me, so me and Pascal Siakam are basically cousins.
But let me say this straight up: People in Southern New Mexico and El Paso largely deal with cash. Mexican people deal with cash. Most of the Hispanic and Mexican customers I dealt with during my banking career behaved that way.
That’s not something I’m guessing about from the outside. That’s something I spent years seeing from behind a teller line and from inside a bank manager’s office. There’s a reason my Bank of America branch in Las Cruces would receive $220,000 in cash every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.
People wanted cash. They would cash their checks, and even people who received direct deposit would come in and withdraw actual cash because they wanted to deal in cash.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I love Apple Pay. I love credit cards. I’ve even contemplated using one of those companies that takes the little chip out of your debit card and puts it into a ring so you can scan your hand at the point of sale. Hell, I’d put the thing in my skin like Demolition Man if it meant I could pay for everything that way.
I’m fine with cashless. But this town is still heavy on cash.
I’m not telling New Mexico State that it’s inherently wrong to stop accepting cash at certain locations. It’s progress I understand why businesses do it. Logistically, cash can be a nightmare, and it costs money to handle money. I get that.
What I don’t like is the inconsistency. You tell everybody you’re a cashless venue. Someone walks into Aggie Memorial Stadium believing they need a debit card or credit card to purchase anything. Then they sit down and watch a guy walking through the section selling beer and water for cash. Now you’ve created confusion. Things like that drive me crazy.
Somebody is going to say, “Wait a minute. You told me I couldn’t use cash. You’re telling me I could have bought a beer with the cash sitting in my pocket?” That’s an inconsistency in your product.
I went to Allegiant Stadium for SummerSlam in 2021, and one of the coolest things I saw there was how they handled this exact issue. Allegiant was cashless, but they had reverse ATMs. You could feed cash into the machine and receive a temporary debit card to use inside the stadium.
That’s going to the extreme for New Mexico State. Allegiant Stadium gets 60,000 people for major events, while New Mexico State had about 9,000 Saturday. I’m not saying Aggie Memorial needs to become Allegiant Stadium. I’m saying know your clientele.
Hispanic people, Mexican people and people throughout Southern New Mexico still deal heavily in cash. I sell things on Facebook Marketplace. Most people pay me in cash, and it’s used cash — not clean money. You know what I mean. It’s simply the nature of the place we’re in.
There are also socioeconomic reasons people remain unbanked, have lost banking relationships, don’t have debit cards or can’t open traditional bank accounts. Those realities hit home in this community. And I understand why New Mexico State wants to streamline things. Hell, someone like me loves the cashless part because I handled cash pretty much every day of my working life beginning in 2005.
But here’s some old banker terminology: KYC. Know Your Customer.
Know your clientele and know who you’re talking to when you’re designing these systems. Because something that seems insignificant from the administrative side — “Oh yeah, technically the beer-and-water guy accepts cash” — can create distrust on the customer side.
You told me I couldn’t use cash, and then I watched somebody else use cash. It’s a tiny inconsistency, but those are the things that linger in people’s heads.
I’m going to be writing another column about my concert experience in El Paso for another column I do, because I had a lot of problems at that concert even though it was free, and I hate complaining about free. But sometimes things need to be said, and this needs to be said, too.
In a world where a 50-year-old stadium is trying to go cashless, there are people equally as old — and plenty who are older — sitting inside that stadium who want nothing to do with credit cards. There are still people who think of a debit card as basically being a credit card and want nothing to do with either one.
Talk to your banking partners, and don’t just talk to the fancy banks with ATMs where you can talk to a person. Talk to the customers at Citizens Bank. Talk to the customers at Bank of the Southwest.
There are still people who write checks, there are still people who deal heavily in cash, and some of those people have, excuse my language, a s*** ton of money.
You don’t want to alienate those customers over something this small, especially when the solution begins with something I was taught a long time ago: Know your customer.
OVERALL GRADE: 7.5/10
All in all, I really do believe New Mexico State did a good job. My entrance into the game was fine — and by that, I mean scanning my ticket was fine. The magnetometer line was absolutely not fine. I commend Fields and Staff for the things that look good. I really do!
But I also have to acknowledge that I’m not necessarily the best sample for every part of this “enhanced game-day experience.” I don’t spend much money on concessions. I don’t mill around the stadium. I don’t tailgate. I don’t even particularly want to talk to people. I want to get to my seat, do what I do best, enjoy the game and cover it.
So I don’t utilize many of the things people were complaining about Saturday night. But there were things I noticed that I simply couldn’t help but notice, and there were enough people telling me about their experiences afterward that I wanted to listen. And that actually is something I know quite a bit about.
I dealt with bank audits. I spent years having conversations with customers about their experiences. I had to notice the little things because the little things were part of my job as a bank manager. And if I can’t advocate for consumers who just happen to also be my paying customers at AGGREGATOR — and paying customers of New Mexico State football, basketball and other sports — then we have a disconnect here.
That’s what this long column is about. I’m trying to be a voice of reason, and I welcome any communication New Mexico State wants to have with me, as long as it’s courteous to what I have to say. I’m willing to lend some of my expertise because I actually want this experience to get better.
And before I go, I want to address one other part of this. I understand Sodexo is part of the New Mexico State quandary when it comes to Pan Am and Aggie Memorial Stadium. I get that. But partnerships can become crutches in these conversations.
New Mexico State can say, “Well, we have this partner that isn’t pulling its weight.” Fans can turn around and say, “Well, it’s this partner that makes New Mexico State look bad.” It’s a two-way street.
If you have partners and you can’t communicate with them, hold them accountable and build bridges with them to make the overall product better, then simply changing partners eventually isn’t going to matter. At some point, the actual troubleshooting has to get done.
I did see the water coming out of the men’s restroom as I was leaving Saturday night. I was looking at the ground because I generally don’t look up when I’m walking through a crowd. I don’t want to accidentally lock eyes with somebody and end up in a conversation I don’t want to have.
But I noticed the wet spots. I stepped over them, and at the time, I didn’t know what they were. Then again, the next night I was at a concert where there was probably 100 gallons of beer spilled across the sidewalk, so to each their own.
My larger point is simple: When you see a problem, fix it. Something as seemingly insignificant as an overflowing trash can leaves a lasting impression. All I care is the football, but at 9,000 people in the crowd, some things shouldn’t be that bad!
Before that concert Sunday night, my wife, my father-in-law and I went to a barbecue joint. It was some of the best barbecue I’ve had. Everything was good, and they loved it.
Then, as we were getting ready to leave, my wife noticed the barbecue sauce bottle on the table had this black spottiness around the little grooves where the screw top goes. It looked like nobody had ever wiped the damn thing down.
Now suddenly I’m thinking: If this barbecue sauce bottle is sitting on the table, customer-facing, where everybody can see it and use it on their food, do I dare wonder what a bottle looks like back in the kitchen where customers can’t see it?
Maybe that’s what happens when you get older and crankier, but those things matter. They especially matter to me because, as much as I love sports, I actually love this topic more than sports. Customer service, consumer behavior, business practices and figuring out why businesses and customers interact the way they do fascinated me long before I was sitting in Aggie Memorial Stadium grading magnetometers.
And those experiences have blessed me in the writing game because they taught me to notice things.
So, New Mexico State:
7.5 OUT OF 10
That’s not a bad grade. There are things I genuinely liked. There are improvements I noticed. There are people working inside that stadium who deserve credit. There are also basic operational things that need attention, and some of those don’t require another multimillion-dollar project or another press release. They require somebody noticing the problem and fixing it.
And I’ll be watching the second part of this experiment very closely when New Mexico comes to Las Cruces. We’re potentially going to have twice as many people inside Aggie Memorial Stadium, including plenty of our friends coming down from Albuquerque. That means more people trying to get through those magnetometers, more people buying concessions, more people using those bathrooms, more people trying to find their seats and a much bigger test of whether this “enhanced game-day experience” actually works when the stadium is under considerably more pressure.
I anticipate it being better, and I hope it’s better. I also hope somebody who can do something about these little things reads this.
P.S. If you are a fan who wants to share another Aggie Memorial Stadium experience, feel free to comment on this column or you can email me at thenotoriousbanker@gmail.com so I can understand more!
Thank you.
James
OK I am done for this Monday. I will get you out another daily football themed column on Tuesday plus some updates on other Aggies sports! Thank you!