We sell more nonresident fishing licenses in Wyoming than we do resident ones, and if you broke it down, I’ll bet most of those out-of-state anglers come from Colorado. We’re happy to take their money, both in the form of payment for licenses and for other things they buy while they’re up here.
There’s a lot of anti-Greenie sentiment because of it. I was driving down one of our rural highways one day, listening to a UW football game on the radio, and I noticed the window decal on the van in front of me. It said, “Live in Colorado, Fish in Colorado.” Yeah, I admit it, I laughed. But I can’t laugh too loudly. We get a lot of money from those Colorado anglers.
But it got me to thinking. As I said, I was listening to a Cowboys game on the radio. Something clicked in my mind, and I had an idea. This is when my wife usually rolls her eyes and groans. But I think this one’s a good one.
They constantly have trouble selling all the tickets for Cowboys home games. It’s probably because some moron decided to put football season right smack in the middle of hunting season. But for whatever reason, there are always a lot of empty seats at War Memorial Stadium. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
The click in my mind happened when I thought about rewording that window sticker. It should say, “Fish in Wyoming, Root for Wyoming.” We could require all Colorado residents to buy season tickets for Wyoming football games before they can get their nonresident fishing licenses. If they only want a daily license, they’d have to buy a ticket for one UW home game.
Wyoming has a pretty loyal fan base, but it’s a small fan base. I think if we made the Colorado residents buy tickets, they’d become Wyoming fans before too long, and we could eventually put more behinds in the seats. It seems to work the other way, with a lot of Wyoming residents being pretty ardent Denver Broncos fans.
The Colorado residents are already up here dippin’ fish out of our waters, so they might as well stick around and boost our football attendance. It’s worth a shot, right?
