Attendance of BCS Programs in Cities with a Strong Pro Sports Presence

Donate To GopherHole
Iceland12

Iceland12

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 12, 2008
Messages
24,461
Reaction score
2,285
Points
113
Saw the Miami Hurricanes mentioned as a team in a Pro Football market with lousy support. Immediately thought of the Pittsburgh Panthers too. Here's article from two seasons back. The writer makes a pretty good case for the Panthers. Gotta love stats and analysis though to stay with him. Big attendance at TCF last year and low this year probably means the Gophers numbers are still relevant today.

Gotta improve them for Minnesota, but it ain't gonna be easy. Even if they bring another big time salesman in. This time with a track record.

There is a lengthy summary at the end of the link.

"For the most part, the biggest factors in determining college football attendance are whether or not your program is the team in the area, a large number of people in the area, including students, and on field success.

Average Attendance of BCS Programs in Cities with a Strong Pro Sports Presence

1. USC 73,196
2. UCLA 70,285
3. Washington 68,769
4. Arizona State 62,689
5. Miami 53,837
6. Stanford 50,726
7. Pittsburgh 49,741
8. California 49,329
9. Georgia Tech 49,077
10. Minnesota 47,797
11. TCU 43,598
12. Northwestern 39,307
13. Colorado 38,463
14. South Florida 34,702
15. Boston College 33,006
16. Cincinnati 31,771

Metro Population

1. USC 13 million
1. UCLA 13 million
3. Northwestern 9.5 million
4. TCU 6.7 million
5. Miami 5.7 million
6. Georgia Tech 5.5 million
7. Boston College 4.6 million
8. California 4.5 million
8. Stanford 4.5 million
10. Arizona State 4.3 million
11. Washington 3.5 million
12. Minnesota 3.4 million
13. South Florida 2.8 million
14. Colorado 2.6 million
15. Pittsburgh 2.4 million
16. Cincinnati 2.1 million

Main Campus Enrollment

1. Arizona State 59,794
2. Minnesota 51,853
3. South Florida 47,646
4. Washington 42,907
5. UCLA 41,812
6. USC 39,958
7. California 35,899
8. Cincinnati 33,329
9. Colorado 31,702
10. Pittsburgh 28,766
11. Georgia Tech 21,557
12. Northwestern 19,219
13. Stanford 15,877
14. Miami 15,657
15. Boston College 14,359
16. TCU 9,725

Top 25 Final Ranking in Last Ten Years

1. USC 8
2. TCU 6
3. Boston College 4
3. Cincinnati 4
3. Stanford 4
6. Miami FL 3
6. Arizona State 3
6. California 3
9. Georgia Tech 2
9. Pittsburgh 2
9. UCLA 2
12. Minnesota 1
12. Northwestern 1
12. Washington 1
15. Colorado 0
15. South Florida 0

If you combine these factors, this is where the attendance of each should rank, and where they do rank. I combined the ranking of the three previous categories (metro population, enrollment, success). The number to the right of their name if the combined rank. For instance, USC is 1st, 1st, and 6th, which gives them a score of 8. The lower the number, the higher the score in this case.

1. USC 8 - What they actually rank: 1
2. UCLA 15 - What they actually rank: 2
3. Arizona State 17 - What they actually rank: 4
4. California 21 - What they actually rank: 8
5. TCU 22 - Where they actually rank: 11
6. Stanford 24 - Where they actually rank: 6
7. Boston College 25 - Where they actually rank: 16
7. Miami 25 - Where they actually rank: 5
9. Georgia Tech 26 - Where they actually rank: 9
9. Minnesota 26 - Where they actually rank: 10
11. Washington 27 - Where they actually rank: 3
11. Cincinnati 27 - Where they actually rank: 16
11. Northwestern 27 - Where they actually rank: 12
14. South Florida 31 - Where they actually rank: 14
15. Pittsburgh 34 - Where they actually rank: 7
16. Colorado 38- Where they actually rank: 13

As you can see, this formula proves to be pretty accurate since the attendance of most schools match up with where they are expected to rank. There are three schools that seem to be underachieving- TCU, Boston College, and Cincinnati. But both TCU and Boston College have extremely small enrollment, which easily explains that. Cincinnati, however, has no excuse.

There are also two schools that averaged significantly higher than where they were expected. Washington should be 11th, but they are actually 3rd in attendance. That number is slightly skewed by the fact that they haven't been very successful on the field in the last decade. But they historically have had a lot of success, and when combined with a large population, a large student body, and just two pro sports teams, it's obvious why their attendance is so high. The other, more impressive overachiever is Pittsburgh, who hasn't had great on field success for decades, has a comparatively small population for a major city, and doesn't have a huge student population.

To be specific, and why it's even more impressive for Pitt, is that Pittsburgh has the smallest metro population of any area that has three major professional sports teams. That means it's difficult enough to sustain three pro sports teams (and three popular ones at that), not to mention a major college football program too...

http://panthersprey.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-myth-of-pitt-football-attendance.html
 

Article was written in 2014. Don't know if it was for the previous season of more cumulative.
 

Interesting analysis. I would modify it because having a pro sports presence is less of a factor than having pro football. LA had no NFL franchise for over two decades, so they deserve an asterisk in this analysis, IMO. I have said for some time that Seattle is the outlier and the aspirational goal for the Gophers.
 

Opps, the University of Colorado is not located in Denver.
 




Interesting analysis. I think you can go back further for "success" or at least look at the peaks of each program. Washington won a share of the National Title in '91 and finished 3rd overall with just 1 loss and a Rose Bowl win in 2000. Boston College was the rare team on this list I didn't remember having a much better peak than the Gophers have had in my lifetime, but in 2007 BC won their division, beat MSU in a bowl game and finished 10th in the country...in '08 they would win their division again. The only program that hasn't surpassed the Gophers best season in the past 30 years or so is South Florida and they just moved up to D1 football in 2000. The peak Gopher season resulted in a final season ranking of 17th in the country which doesn't inspire much confidence or excitement for the program. Literally every other program mentioned has given their ticket holders a better season than Minnesota. I'd also add that the embarrassing records against Iowa and Wisconsin the past 20 years or so add salt to the wounds and are probably unique among this group of schools as well (probably the worst record in rivalry games in the group).
 

.

UCLA, Miami and Pittsburgh have drawn horribly in recent years (since 2014) and the # of real fans in the seats is way lower than what was on that post. Northwestern is actually worse, even when they are good.

Minnesota, prior to this year draws quite well relative to the peers, and Tracy Claeys should shoulder almost zero blame for the dip this year.. This is mostly on Norwood Teague and the team not being real great last year, followed up by the Iowa and PSU losses. Those losses in their own right were not that awful, other than the fact the 0-2 Big Ten start killed all momentum.

Almost every college team near a big market has a horrible time selling out unless they are winning, and winning a lot. Even Michigan started to drop under that fat guy from Ball State who turned us down and was fired after 2014.
 

I think the metro area population is less relevant - it is the % of that population that are alumni from the school AND the years of relevancy of the program over the last 40 years. The first is obvious - you will have more loyalty to the program if you have an attachment that goes beyond geography. The second is very important as you need to catch the bandwagon fans at some point - not for them so much (they are fickle) - but for their children. You pound into a kid that the school is great and you should be loyal from the ages of 5-12 and it becomes even more ingrained when they are teens/young adults and they tend to pass that onto their children too.

I think this explains why the Badgers have grown their fanbase as well as why the Packers connection is strong despite a lot of their fans never having been born in WI or lived in the state - it is carried over by the parents. I attended a Packer/San Fran game a few years back - the Packers blew them out so by the start of the 4th, the stadium was 25% filled and those remaining were all Packer fans. I talked with a few - mostly early 20's types - and they were nearly 100% born in CA.

The Gopher problem is that we have sucked for so many years that we lost a generation or 2 of children that never grew up with their parents talking about Gopher football. I think that is even born out on this board - a ton of people which seem to be 60+ that probably grew up in strong Gopher households but not too many in the 30-50 crowd.
 





Oh, and Arizona State attendance is not so great either unless they are winning big. They just spend a few years eliminating about 25000 or so seats from their stadium.
 




MNGoldenGophers1 said:
Ann Arbor is only 45-minutes from Detroit, is that close enough? Where do you draw the line?
Click to expand...

Detroit seems to be an unusual case, especially for the North, where people seem to care more about their college team than their pro team. Probably because the Lions are almost always terrible.
 

From the link:

- There are also two schools that averaged significantly higher than where they were expected. Washington should be 11th, but they are actually 3rd in attendance. That number is slightly skewed by the fact that they haven't been very successful on the field in the last decade. But they historically have had a lot of success, and when combined with a large population, a large student body, and just two pro sports teams, it's obvious why their attendance is so high. The other, more impressive overachiever is Pittsburgh, who hasn't had great on field success for decades, has a comparatively small population for a major city, and doesn't have a huge student population. ..

- Attendance being limited by being in a pro sports area can not be overstated. USC has had huge success on the field, 13 million people to draw from, and no NFL team providing competition, yet they still only draw 73,196 a game, which is roughly 30,000 less than what the best college towns draw. That number is also 20,000 below capacity for their stadium...

-The five programs with the most fans were Ohio State (3.1 million), Michigan (2.9 million), Penn State (2.6 million), Notre Dame (2.3 million), and Texas (2.2 million). Notre Dame is the school that Catholics around the country follow so their popularity is obvious. The other four are a perfect storm for huge attendance.

All four have huge success, mostly because they have the money, through attendance, to have huge budgets. But one can easily see how they got those huge attendance numbers in the first place...

- Ohio State only has the NHL's Columbus Blue Jackets as competition, and clearly that's not much competition at all. The Blue Jackets formed in 1997, long after the Buckeyes had the area dominated. Columbus also has a metro population of nearly 2 million people, almost as much as Pittsburgh. Imagine if Pitt and the Penguins were the only two teams in Pittsburgh. No Pirates, no Steelers. If that's not enough, Ohio State also has over 57,000 students on the main campus, twice what Pitt has. That means not only a large number of current students, but also a large number of alumni.

Michigan is very similar. They are just 45 minutes from Detroit, which is close enough to visit games, but with an attendance of over 100,000, they are a a large college town. The Detroit metro area has 4.3 million people in it, double that of Pittsburgh. If that's not enough Michigan has 43,000 students on the main campus, and they are believed to have the most living alumni in the country. That's how you routinely fill up the biggest football stadium, college or pro, in the country.

Texas is in Austin, which has over 1.8 million people in the metro area, and no professional sports teams. That alone will make the Longhorns football program popular. But then throw in an enrollment of over 52,000 and you can see why they get double what Pitt gets in attendance.

Then there's Penn State, who Pitt fans are most compared to. The Nittany Lions have no pro teams within hours yet can still draw from both Pittsburgh's 2.4 million metro population and Philadelphia's 6 million metro population. That's a double whammy. On top of that they also have a combined 98,000 total students in their entire system. By comparison, Pitt has 35,000 total students in their entire system. Let me repeat that so it will sink in- Penn State has three times more people to chose from.

Looking further at the schools with top attendance, one sees much of the same. No. 3 in attendance is Alabama with just over 101,000. They have the perfect blend of big college town (93,000), close to a big city (Birmingham with 1.1 million metro population), and a big university (nearly 35,000).

No. 6 in attendance is Tennessee with around 95,500. The university competes with no sports teams, but has 850,000 people in their metro area, and a large university of 27,000 students. Again, roughly the same size school and population as Pittsburgh, but with no sports teams to compete against them. They are the Steelers, Pirates, and Penguins all wrapped up in a big ball of orange...

The magic potion is to have a very large university, near, but not in, a major city, and with no major professional teams present. The University of Pittsburgh meets none of that criteria, meaning that their attendance will never reach huge numbers, and may be maxed out at roughly half of what the schools with the most attendance achieve.
 

Its precisely about city/student population and competition. Supply and demand.

It's been proven over and over again that losing a pro team to relocation does not change or lessen the economy of a metro area. People simply spend their money on other things. This is just another analysis of the same thing.

Winning helps. The majority of people, the majority, are bandwagon jumpers.
 

its pretty simple guys, i'll answer these questions so we dont have to have a thread in this vein again (although the data and writeup was a vast improvement over the typical attendance bitching)

there are 13 media markets in the US with teams from all four pro sports, and we are the the 11th largest in that group, 15th largest overall in the country. while we are a more affluent metro than most our size, we simply dont have the consumer dollars available to support every squad to the gills night in and night out. the cure to this? win a lot so that when kids are undergrads they will get hooked, and then will carry that fandom more dearly later in life.

its not super difficult guys, we dont face any challenges unique to our situation (besides bottom 3 weather for all major metros)
 

EG#9 said:
Interesting analysis. I think you can go back further for "success" or at least look at the peaks of each program. Washington won a share of the National Title in '91 and finished 3rd overall with just 1 loss and a Rose Bowl win in 2000. Boston College was the rare team on this list I didn't remember having a much better peak than the Gophers have had in my lifetime, but in 2007 BC won their division, beat MSU in a bowl game and finished 10th in the country...in '08 they would win their division again. The only program that hasn't surpassed the Gophers best season in the past 30 years or so is South Florida and they just moved up to D1 football in 2000. The peak Gopher season resulted in a final season ranking of 17th in the country which doesn't inspire much confidence or excitement for the program. Literally every other program mentioned has given their ticket holders a better season than Minnesota. I'd also add that the embarrassing records against Iowa and Wisconsin the past 20 years or so add salt to the wounds and are probably unique among this group of schools as well (probably the worst record in rivalry games in the group).
Click to expand...

We are 7-13 against Iowa over the last twenty games. I wouldn't call that "embarrassing," but whatever floats your boat.
 

Interesting analysis. I had to smile at the line that "Cincinnati has no excuse." Outside the fact that their stadium doesn't hold any more people than their average attendance, that may be true. :)
 

Gophers09 said:
Interesting analysis. I had to smile at the line that "Cincinnati has no excuse." Outside the fact that their stadium doesn't hold any more people than their average attendance, that may be true. :)
Click to expand...

Nippert Stadium holds 40,000. They had an atypical year last year when they averaged 37,096 (coming off consecutive 9-win seasons and in the first year after a reonvation). Now that they regressed last year (and are terrible this year) they've regressed back to their typical pattern in recent years of upper 20 k - low 30 k. They just drew 25,796 last weekend for a conference game against quasi-rival Memphis.
 

The flip side of this argument would be to look at schools such as Penn State, Texas A&M, Tennessee, LSU, and UGA, all in the top ten largest college football stadiums (and up there in attendance figures, as well).

The average Penn State fan is not likely to live in State College. Instead, they are probably in Philadelphia or Pittsburgh, driving past the convenience of attending an Eagles or Steelers game to make a three-hour trip to see the Nittany Lions. Most of Texas A&M fans do not live in College Station. They come in from Houston or Dallas, driving past the Texans and Cowboys. Same with Tennessee/Titans, LSU/Saints, and UGA/Falcons. The majority of the fans of these programs drive past an NFL team that is in their own backyard to make a 2-4 hour EACH WAY roadtrip to see their college team.

I'm not sure I buy the excuse that people don't go to see the Gophers because of the Vikings when there is a line of cars driving past Cowboys Stadium to go to Kyle Field or past the Superdome to head to Tiger Stadium. Those fans are not only willing to prioritize their entertainment dollars towards college football, but also invest 4-6 hours of their time in transit to do so. This also equates to spending sometimes as much as $200k on an RV, $250 per night on a hotel, dining out, gas money, etc.

A Georgia Tech fan could wake up in their own home and leisurely pop down 85 an hour before kickoff to make the game, doing the same for the Falcons game the following day. Meanwhile, the UGA fan has to make a 1.5-2.0 hour roadtrip from Atlanta before and after the game. Yet UGA has an average attendance of 92k fans and GT has 48k fans (and UGA is only 10k students larger in attendance). The average UGA fan had to spend more time, money, etc. into watching their team, yet nearly twice as many fans choose that option.
 

dpodoll68 said:
Nippert Stadium holds 40,000. They had an atypical year last year when they averaged 37,096 (coming off consecutive 9-win seasons and in the first year after a reonvation). Now that they regressed last year (and are terrible this year) they've regressed back to their typical pattern in recent years of upper 20 k - low 30 k. They just drew 25,796 last weekend for a conference game against quasi-rival Memphis.
Click to expand...

Should have clarified I guess, that I was referring to capacity at the time of the article :)
 

TexasAggie11 said:
The flip side of this argument would be to look at schools such as Penn State, Texas A&M, Tennessee, LSU, and UGA, all in the top ten largest college football stadiums (and up there in attendance figures, as well)....[/I]

Didn't read the link huh? Only gonna repost a part of it. Getting tried of the whole topic. Though it will come up again, whether the contract is rented or not. :banghead::banghead::banghead:

Then there's Penn State, who Pitt fans are most compared to. The Nittany Lions have no pro teams within hours yet can still draw from both Pittsburgh's 2.4 million metro population and Philadelphia's 6 million metro population. That's a double whammy. On top of that they also have a combined 98,000 total students in their entire system. By comparison, Pitt has 35,000 total students in their entire system. Let me repeat that so it will sink in- Penn State has three times more people to chose from.

Looking further at the schools with top attendance, one sees much of the same. No. 3 in attendance is Alabama with just over 101,000. They have the perfect blend of big college town (93,000), close to a big city (Birmingham with 1.1 million metro population), and a big university (nearly 35,000).

No. 6 in attendance is Tennessee with around 95,500. The university competes with no sports teams, but has 850,000 people in their metro area, and a large university of 27,000 students. Again, roughly the same size school and population as Pittsburgh, but with no sports teams to compete against them. They are the Steelers, Pirates, and Penguins all wrapped up in a big ball of orange...

The magic potion is to have a very large university, near, but not in, a major city, and with no major professional teams present. The University of Pittsburgh meets none of that criteria, meaning that their attendance will never reach huge numbers, and may be maxed out at roughly half of what the schools with the most attendance achieve.

http://panthersprey.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-myth-of-pitt-football-attendance.html
Click to expand...
 

Iceland12 said:
TexasAggie11 said:
The flip side of this argument would be to look at schools such as Penn State, Texas A&M, Tennessee, LSU, and UGA, all in the top ten largest college football stadiums (and up there in attendance figures, as well)....[/I]

Didn't read the link huh? Only gonna repost a part of it. Getting tried of the whole topic. Though it will come up again, whether the contract is rented or not. :banghead::banghead::banghead:

Then there's Penn State, who Pitt fans are most compared to. The Nittany Lions have no pro teams within hours yet can still draw from both Pittsburgh's 2.4 million metro population and Philadelphia's 6 million metro population. That's a double whammy. On top of that they also have a combined 98,000 total students in their entire system. By comparison, Pitt has 35,000 total students in their entire system. Let me repeat that so it will sink in- Penn State has three times more people to chose from.

Looking further at the schools with top attendance, one sees much of the same. No. 3 in attendance is Alabama with just over 101,000. They have the perfect blend of big college town (93,000), close to a big city (Birmingham with 1.1 million metro population), and a big university (nearly 35,000).

No. 6 in attendance is Tennessee with around 95,500. The university competes with no sports teams, but has 850,000 people in their metro area, and a large university of 27,000 students. Again, roughly the same size school and population as Pittsburgh, but with no sports teams to compete against them. They are the Steelers, Pirates, and Penguins all wrapped up in a big ball of orange...

The magic potion is to have a very large university, near, but not in, a major city, and with no major professional teams present. The University of Pittsburgh meets none of that criteria, meaning that their attendance will never reach huge numbers, and may be maxed out at roughly half of what the schools with the most attendance achieve.

http://panthersprey.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-myth-of-pitt-football-attendance.html
Click to expand...

No, I read the article, and that is why I tried to expand on other examples.

It's also why I didn't include Alabama, because it has no major professional sports in the state to compete with.

And, the Penn State enrollment example may hold some water, but I would argue that someone at the University of Minnesota Crookston is a Golden Eagle, not a Gopher. I know PSU does its degrees differently, but I don't think you can automatically count everyone at some far-flung branch as a fan of the flagship campus' team.

Let's be real about Knoxville, Tennessee. It's a city of 200k with a metro area of half-a-dozen counties of 850k. The metro area population of Pittsburgh is 2.5mm. That's not roughly the same population.

I think my examples of Texas A&M, LSU, and UGA all hold weight - people drive out of the metro areas where they live, past a pro sports team, to get to a college campus.
Click to expand...
 

TexasAggie11 said:
The flip side of this argument would be to look at schools such as Penn State, Texas A&M, Tennessee, LSU, and UGA, all in the top ten largest college football stadiums (and up there in attendance figures, as well).

The average Penn State fan is not likely to live in State College. Instead, they are probably in Philadelphia or Pittsburgh, driving past the convenience of attending an Eagles or Steelers game to make a three-hour trip to see the Nittany Lions. Most of Texas A&M fans do not live in College Station. They come in from Houston or Dallas, driving past the Texans and Cowboys. Same with Tennessee/Titans, LSU/Saints, and UGA/Falcons. The majority of the fans of these programs drive past an NFL team that is in their own backyard to make a 2-4 hour EACH WAY roadtrip to see their college team.

I'm not sure I buy the excuse that people don't go to see the Gophers because of the Vikings when there is a line of cars driving past Cowboys Stadium to go to Kyle Field or past the Superdome to head to Tiger Stadium. Those fans are not only willing to prioritize their entertainment dollars towards college football, but also invest 4-6 hours of their time in transit to do so. This also equates to spending sometimes as much as $200k on an RV, $250 per night on a hotel, dining out, gas money, etc.

A Georgia Tech fan could wake up in their own home and leisurely pop down 85 an hour before kickoff to make the game, doing the same for the Falcons game the following day. Meanwhile, the UGA fan has to make a 1.5-2.0 hour roadtrip from Atlanta before and after the game. Yet UGA has an average attendance of 92k fans and GT has 48k fans (and UGA is only 10k students larger in attendance). The average UGA fan had to spend more time, money, etc. into watching their team, yet nearly twice as many fans choose that option.
Click to expand...

Something to be said for the experience of it. Traveling to College Station from an actual city in Texas is an event, get in the RV and travel for a mini-vacation. This differentiates the experience from staying in the city for a pro game. That event feeling doesn't exist when the college team is in the same town as the pro team.
 

Ski U Master said:
Something to be said for the experience of it. Traveling to College Station from an actual city in Texas is an event, get in the RV and travel for a mini-vacation. This differentiates the experience from staying in the city for a pro game. That event feeling doesn't exist when the college team is in the same town as the pro team.
Click to expand...

I'll ignore your "actual city" comment and say that I agree with you in that it's the experience of it all. When all of your fans live in town, you don't have nearly the same tailgating scene because everyone can just grab a sandwich at home or hit a restaurant in whatever suburb they happen to live in. If you're making a weekend out of it, you're going to go big with your tailgate and make it more of a community event. In that regard, it's not so much about a three-hour game as it is an entire day spent with friends and family.
 

If the U were in say Duluth or Rochester would people from the twin cities make the two hour trip for a football game?

Sent from my D6708 using Tapatalk
 

dpodoll68 said:
We are 7-13 against Iowa over the last twenty games. I wouldn't call that "embarrassing," but whatever floats your boat.
Click to expand...

If essentially winning 1 out of every 3 times against Iowa for 20 years is not embarrassing, I don't know what is. I am surprised that would be anywhere near an acceptable record to any Gopher fan. Other words that could be used to describe that record: pathetic, revolting, disgusting.
 

fippled said:
If the U were in say Duluth or Rochester would people from the twin cities make the two hour trip for a football game?

Sent from my D6708 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

so if history never happened got it good question dude - hope there never is a post #5
 

EG#9 said:
If essentially winning 1 out of every 3 times against Iowa for 20 years is not embarrassing, I don't know what is. I am surprised that would be anywhere near an acceptable record to any Gopher fan. Other words that could be used to describe that record: pathetic, revolting, disgusting.
Click to expand...

When you consider it in context (i.e., in 1996 Iowa was ending a 20-year run with the best coach in school history, Minnesota about to hire a new coach coming off 30 years of mediocrity and worse), 7-13 actually looks pretty good. Of course I want it to be better, but I also realize that the teams didn't start from the same place. I'd kill to be 7-13 in the last 20 years against Michigan and Wisconsin. As long as we're playing the time-slice game, the Gophers are 3-4 in the last 7 games. I realize that doesn't fit your narrative, so my apologies for bringing it up.
 

You must log in or register to reply here.



Top Bottom