College Football’s Growing Problem: Empty Seats - Wall Street Journal

Iceland12

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 12, 2008
Messages
24,348
Reaction score
2,241
Points
113
College football has an attendance problem. Average announced attendance in football’s top division dropped for the fourth consecutive year last year, declining 7.6% in four years. But schools’ internal records show that the sport’s attendance woes go far beyond that.

The average count of tickets scanned at home games—the number of fans who actually show up—is about 71% of the attendance you see in a box score, according to data from the 2017 season collected by The Wall Street Journal. In the Mid-American Conference, with less-prominent programs like Central Michigan and Toledo, teams’ scanned attendance numbers were 45% of announced attendance...

When Arkansas hosted No. 21 Auburn, scanned attendance was more than 25,000 lower than announced attendance. Overall last season, Arkansas’s scanned home attendance was 58% of its announced attendance as the Razorbacks went 4-8. Nonetheless, Reynolds Razorback Stadium is reopening Saturday after a $160 million renovation that increased capacity by about 4,000. An Arkansas spokesman declined to comment...

Florida State, which won the 2013 national title, last season had a scanned attendance that was 57% of its announced attendance. FSU spokesman Rob Wilson blamed personnel and technical issues in scanning tickets and said, “We do not believe the difference is as large as the data appears to show.”

Sine, the ticketing expert, said technology has improved to the point that scanning errors generally have a minor effect on stadium ticket counts...

Many schools take a generous approach in compiling announced attendance, by including ushers, security guards and even the guy at the concession stand who sells you a Coke. That partly explains how Purdue’s announced attendance last season spiked 13,433 per game—the largest jump in college football. (Purdue didn’t report how many tickets it actually scanned last year, citing what a spokesman called “outdated equipment, connectivity problems and user error.”)..


https://www.wsj.com/articles/college-footballs-growing-problem-empty-seats-1535634001
 

14,000 noshows at TCF Bank Stadium for the Nebraska game last year. Yikes.
 

The article leads with the Gophers:

When Minnesota hosted Nebraska at TCF Bank Stadium last year, the game featured charismatic new Golden Gophers coach P.J. Fleck, a home team fighting for a bowl berth and a big-name opponent. The announced attendance was 39,933—an OK crowd for a crisp November day in Minneapolis—but it didn’t tell the whole story.

Only 25,493 ticketed fans were counted at the gates, 36% lower than the announced attendance and about half of the stadium’s capacity. More than 14,000 people who bought tickets or got them for free didn’t show up.

College football has an attendance problem. Average announced attendance in football’s top division dropped for the fourth consecutive year last year, declining 7.6% in four years. But schools’ internal records show that the sport’s attendance woes go far beyond that.

The average count of tickets scanned at home games—the number of fans who actually show up—is about 71% of the attendance you see in a box score, according to data from the 2017 season collected by The Wall Street Journal. In the Mid-American Conference, with less-prominent programs like Central Michigan and Toledo, teams’ scanned attendance numbers were 45% of announced attendance.

Even teams in the nation’s five richest conferences routinely record thousands fewer people passing through stadium gates than they report publicly. The no-shows reflect the challenge of filling large venues when nearly every game is on TV, and they threaten a key revenue source for college athletic departments.

“Attendance drives recruiting, attendance drives donations, merchandise sales,” said Rob Sine, who until earlier this year was president of IMG Learfield Ticket Solutions, which works with dozens of colleges. If fans don’t use their tickets, he added, “they’re more likely to not come back.”

Minnesota’s gap between scanned and announced attendance could have been worse—its announced attendance doesn’t include stadium staff, marching bands or media, as many other schools do. A Minnesota spokesman said officials were unavailable to comment.

Go Gophers!!
 

14,000 noshows at TCF Bank Stadium for the Nebraska game last year. Yikes.

A lot of them were probably Nebraska fans who bought their tickets early, before the Cornhuskers cratered. Despite their glowing reputation for being die-hard fans who travel everywhere for their team, they have a whole bunch of front runners in that bunch. It was a whole lot easier for them when Nebraska was winning 10-11 games every year.

"Nebraska boasts a sellout streak that dates to the 1962 season. But during last year’s 4-8 record, there was an average gap of more than 18,000 per game between scanned and announced attendance—mostly no-shows."
 

Many large corporations including a handful in the Twin Cities would buy blocks of tickets to make them available to employees with different incentives or discounts.

If the employees don't buy them, those unsold tickets are empty seats unless there are donation arrangements. Winning will make these tickets desirable.

The average cost of any sports pro and college must have gone up over the years faster than the average income. Is there a point in time where pro and college sports will price themselves out?
 


Most off-seasons one of the guys over at Gopher Puck Live does a freedom of information act request for the scanned results per game and they are often quite bad. Anyone can look around TCF Bank Stadium on gameday and see the huge discrepancies between announced attendance and actual. Glad there is some data starting to be reported on to keep this in perspective.
 

I would say the answer to this is pretty simple. It is the same few teams every year at the top of the heap. Until they actually crack down on the top schools about their cheating, paying players, etc. it will stay this way.

People are sick of 10 schools doing anything and everything they want and winning while smaller programs get hammered anytime they break a rule and have a hard time recruiting top players.
 

I would say the answer to this is pretty simple. It is the same few teams every year at the top of the heap. Until they actually crack down on the top schools about their cheating, paying players, etc. it will stay this way.

People are sick of 10 schools doing anything and everything they want and winning while smaller programs get hammered anytime they break a rule and have a hard time recruiting top players.

This is what you think the issue is? That if Alabama gets busted for cheating than Minnesota fans will start going to games??

Go Gophers!!
 

This is what you think the issue is? That if Alabama gets busted for cheating than Minnesota fans will start going to games??

Go Gophers!!

Wowsers. That's quite a take.

Losers like to find excuses for why they aren't doing so well. Looking in the mirror is tough duty, no doubt about it. "They cheated" is a ridiculous argument. Get your own house in order and get better or get out of the game.

There's no reason for the Gophers to not be competitive in college football, and I fully expect they will under the current staff. I don't care what the others are doing to get players, keep players, win games, etc. The rules of the game are set in place and everyone needs to abide by them the same.

As far as the empty seats at TCF, the Gophers just plain have a lot of competition in the MSP market. It's one of the reasons I hate to admit it but I hope the soccer team fails miserably. Too much competition for a finite amount of resources people have with the 4 major sports and several others. Competition for the average fans' money will always be a tall task in MSP. That's just the way it is.
 



Maybe the NCAA should do the blackout rule the NFL used to do. If the game isn't sold 72 hours before the game it is blacked out in a certain radius of the stadium
 

Wowsers. That's quite a take.

Losers like to find excuses for why they aren't doing so well. Looking in the mirror is tough duty, no doubt about it. "They cheated" is a ridiculous argument. Get your own house in order and get better or get out of the game.

There's no reason for the Gophers to not be competitive in college football, and I fully expect they will under the current staff. I don't care what the others are doing to get players, keep players, win games, etc. The rules of the game are set in place and everyone needs to abide by them the same.

As far as the empty seats at TCF, the Gophers just plain have a lot of competition in the MSP market. It's one of the reasons I hate to admit it but I hope the soccer team fails miserably. Too much competition for a finite amount of resources people have with the 4 major sports and several others. Competition for the average fans' money will always be a tall task in MSP. That's just the way it is.

No, make the others plays by the rules so that the recruiting landscape is fair. The big boys get away with whatever they want, thus they get the best players, and keep their program top notch. There are only 10 teams that can win a national championship or make the top bowls each year. They just take turns. The rest of college football eats scraps. It's the same way in college basketball. Why buy season tickets when your ceiling as a team or program is a .500 season or a game or 2 over? Is the Motor City bowl someplace fans like to go and watch a game? How about Michigan at Minnesota when the score will probably be 63-14?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not excusing Minnesota for years of disappointing football.
 

Maybe the NCAA should do the blackout rule the NFL used to do. If the game isn't sold 72 hours before the game it is blacked out in a certain radius of the stadium

That's fine and dandy with the Vikes. Whatever Gopher fan who do not go to games or cannot afford the tickets will watch on TV. You take that away, and they'll simply stop watching the Gophers altogether. Then, you may lose those fans for good. It may be a different case if the Gophers are winning or competing for the title more often or if they make it to the Rose Bowl.
 




Top Bottom