Colleg Football Attendance - We are not the only ones

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Stan The Caddy

Stan The Caddy

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Intersting look at attendance AROUND THE COUNTRY for opening weekend from Pat Forde @ Yahoo Sports. This is from Forde's weekly "Forde Yard Dash" column, which for me is a must read along with Stewart Mandel's Monday morning review and Wednesday weekly mailbag.

Forde looks at attendance being significantly down at several prominant locations over the weekend. Most surprising to me was that Oregon did not sell out until the last minute for their opener.
 

Stan The Caddy said:
Intersting look at attendance AROUND THE COUNTRY for opening weekend from Pat Forde @ Yahoo Sports. This is from Forde's weekly "Forde Yard Dash" column, which for me is a must read along with Stewart Mandel's Monday morning review and Wednesday weekly mailbag.

Forde looks at attendance being significantly down at several prominant locations over the weekend. Most surprising to me was that Oregon did not sell out until the last minute for their opener.
Click to expand...

Good question Stan. A hole LOT of empty seats out there beyond TCF!

CLEAR EYES, FULL HEARTS … CAN'T SELL TICKETS
Maybe not everyone was as excited as The Dash for the start of college football season. Judging from attendance figures, there were some surprisingly soft tickets for the opening weekend of 2012.
There was exactly one announced capacity crowd in eight Southeastern Conference home openers. Before the Labor Day Georgia Tech-Virginia Tech game, six out of seven Atlantic Coast Conference schools had smaller crowds than their openers last year – some of them much smaller. Attendance was down at six out of eight Big 12 home openers from 2011. Five out of eight Pac-12 schools had smaller crowds as well, and Oregon's 13-year sellout streak was in jeopardy until game day.
[Related: Georgia Tech’s uniforms are a mesmerizing honeycomb of awesomeness]
The Dash has some theories on what's going on. The main one: Fans are increasingly less likely to pay higher ticket prices for mismatch games against bad opponents – especially when more games than ever are on TV or online, and the home viewing experience has never been better. The Saturday stadium experience is a wonderful thing, but getting fans to shell out for Elon, Murray State and Chattanooga is a tough sell.
P.T. Barnum said there's a sucker born every minute, and a whole bunch of them grew up to become college football fans. That's the only explanation for why we've put up with the bowl cartel and lousy scheduling as long as we have.
...

The bad: Illinois (5) fans were so excited for the debut of Tim Beckman that they left more than 17,000 seats empty in 60,670-seat Memorial Stadium. Their crowd of 43,441 for the Western Michigan game was down 1,713 from last year's home opener against Arkansas State. Presumptive whiny fan excuse: It was supposed to rain buckets. Dash response: It didn't. And even if it did, ponchos are six bucks at Walmart.
Purdue (6) could have a promising season, but that promise didn't translate to opening-day enthusiasm from the fans. A crowd of 40,527 showed up to see Eastern Kentucky, down more than 1,500 from the opener last year against Middle Tennessee. That's nearly 22,000 below capacity at Ross-Ade Stadium. Presumptive whiny fan excuse: We're two hours from Champaign; our weather was supposed to be bad, too. Dash response: Ponchos are six bucks at your Walmart, too.

...

The bad: Arizona (11) had a year-over-year drop of more than 3,000 despite the heralded debut of coach Rich Rodriguez. Presumptive whiny fan excuse: Last year we opened with Northern Arizona, which brought fans. This year we opened with Toledo, which didn't. Dash response: Seriously, Bear Down and show up.
Stanford (12) found out what life is like after Andrew Luck both on the field and at the turnstiles. The Cardinal struggled past San Jose State 20-17 in front of 40,577, a drop of more than 7,000 from the 2011 attendance to open against the same team. Presumptive whiny fan excuse: We're smart enough to know the glory days are gone. Dash response: Couldn't you wait one game to see the evidence first?
ACC
The good: The closest thing there was to good news was Boston College (13) putting 39,262 in the seats, up 1,701 from last year's home opener. But the opponent this year was Miami for a league game, and last year it was Northwestern.
The bad: Everyone else. Biggest warning sign had to be North Carolina (14), which announced a crowd 6,500 smaller than last year's home opener and 12,500 short of capacity for the debut of Larry Fedora. Presumptive whiny fan excuse: We're protesting the academic stink hovering over the athletic department. Dash response: Fair enough.
BIG EAST

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/ncaaf-...ts-fill-college-football-s-first-weekend.html
 

I have a friend who attended the Florida State game on Saturday. She said there were thousands of empty seats in the end zones. Maybe their students didn't have anywhere to tailgate.
 

CP Gopher said:
I have a friend who attended the Florida State game on Saturday. She said there were thousands of empty seats in the end zones. Maybe their students didn't have anywhere to tailgate.
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:clap::clap::clap:
 

This is the effect of the basketballization of college football. First, a large number of inter-divisional regular season games. Then, an announced playoff.

There is a continued dillution of the regular season and fans are going to become increasingly disinteretsed in investing in witnessing it.
 


I went to a basketball game at Oregon a few years ago when I lived out there.

I still get emails hawking tickets for everything.
 

CP Gopher said:
I have a friend who attended the Florida State game on Saturday. She said there were thousands of empty seats in the end zones. Maybe their students didn't have anywhere to tailgate.
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LOL - Nice!
 

Goldmember said:
This is the effect of the basketballization of college football. First, a large number of inter-divisional regular season games. Then, an announced playoff.

There is a continued dillution of the regular season and fans are going to become increasingly disinteretsed in investing in witnessing it.
Click to expand...

Or maybe people are wising up to the fact that it isn't terribly exciting to watch their team pound on North Penisbutt State in Week One.

I don't think the playoff has much to do with it - it's going to bring in huge ratings and national interest. The net positives of a four-team playoff are far greater than any contrived negatives you can invent.
 

Goldmember said:
This is the effect of the basketballization of college football. First, a large number of inter-divisional regular season games. Then, an announced playoff.

There is a continued dillution of the regular season and fans are going to become increasingly disinteretsed in investing in witnessing it.
Click to expand...

Not to mention, it was Labor Day weekend, which, for many of us in the northern US, is the last big weekend of the summer. As someone on another message board I frequent, who is a HUGE college football fan, said "you only have so many summers in your life and you have to take advantage." He went to the beach rather than going to his team's game on Saturday.
 



discochris said:
Not to mention, it was Labor Day weekend, which, for many of us in the northern US, is the last big weekend of the summer. As someone on another message board I frequent, who is a HUGE college football fan, said "you only have so many summers in your life and you have to take advantage." He went to the beach rather than going to his team's game on Saturday.
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Never understood this reasoning.. Yes, you only have so many summers, but by that token there are also only so many college football seasons. There are 14 other weekends from Memorial Day leading up to Labor Day. That's 14 weeks/ends to take advantage of sun and weather for things like swimming, trips, cabins, and so much more. For the people in the south that Forde calls out... isn't the advantage of living down there that you have access to nice weather for more of the year?

To me, if you're a fan then you're a fan. Are you a Gopher fan? Then Labor Day weekend (at least when they play at home, if that will ever happen again) is one of the most exciting times of the year and THAT is how you enjoy being outside on the "last" weekend of summer. Yes, it will be getting cold out later so why not tailgate, grill, play football leading up to the game then go catch it in an OUTDOOR stadium (like 98% of other college football venues are). You have the opportunity to use the long weekend to do any number of activities; state fair is still going on, relaxing at local lakes is an option on any of the other 3 days of the weekend (or even ON gameday if you're not in to tailgating), doing house chores, etc.

I know this is just me and a handful of other people because there are so many people who want to travel on Labor Day or aren't in to college football as much as me or any other excuse. Just seems odd that stadiums that typically sell out are having a hard time filling seats.
 

Huh, as soon as I posted I was curious when the next home game over Labor Day weekend was for us. Turns out it is next year vs. UNLV. And we have the same for the 3 years after that, as well. I, for one, am excited to be back home on the weekend. The U is going to have to do a good job marketing this, utilizing the fair as a way to draw fans/pump them up/free shuttle to game (rather than fighting against it or worry about the logistics), and getting the casual fan or die-hards even on this board who might be at the cabin to come to the game.
 

Kill was talking about playing home games on the Thursday before Labor Day rather than on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend. I like that idea. There's less competition for the TV market, and the Gophers don't have to compete against the 3-day weekend. A lot of people get out of one last long weekend of summer on Labor Day weekend. But if the game is on Thursday, then people don't have to choose, they can go to the Gophers game and head out for the weekend.
 

RailBaronYarr said:
Huh, as soon as I posted I was curious when the next home game over Labor Day weekend was for us. Turns out it is next year vs. UNLV. And we have the same for the 3 years after that, as well. I, for one, am excited to be back home on the weekend. The U is going to have to do a good job marketing this, utilizing the fair as a way to draw fans/pump them up/free shuttle to game (rather than fighting against it or worry about the logistics), and getting the casual fan or die-hards even on this board who might be at the cabin to come to the game.
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Actually the game(s) are on Thursday PM, not the weekend.
 





RailBaronYarr said:
Never understood this reasoning.. Yes, you only have so many summers, but by that token there are also only so many college football seasons. There are 14 other weekends from Memorial Day leading up to Labor Day. That's 14 weeks/ends to take advantage of sun and weather for things like swimming, trips, cabins, and so much more. For the people in the south that Forde calls out... isn't the advantage of living down there that you have access to nice weather for more of the year?
Click to expand...

True about people in the south. As far as those of us in the North, there are not really 14 weekends to take advantage of other activities. Most people have a few weekends where they're required to do other things, or the weather is bad or something.

If someone's normal lake recreation place is 2-4 hours away, they aren't going to stick around town to watch the game and then go up, essentially taking up half of a long weekend. I certainly would not, knowing that it's going to be another eight months or so before it's going to be nice enough to go out on the lake for a weekend again.

From my days playing in a band, you knew NEVER to schedule gigs on Labor Day weekend. The town absolutely clears out. Quite simply, Gopher football is not anywhere close to enough of a draw for people to choose it over other recreational activities.

Have you seen the movie "The Blindside?" The couple portrayed in the movie lived in Memphis but they actually owned a condo near Ole Miss and made an event of every game weekend. This for a traditionally bad team. For people like that (and they exist at many of the big time programs and even the bad programs in the SEC), their "vacation places" often revolve around college football. That simply does not happen here, and I doubt it ever will. That's not even about being fans, thats totally a product of the local culture, and that isn't going to change.
 

Goldmember said:
This is the effect of the basketballization of college football. First, a large number of inter-divisional regular season games. Then, an announced playoff.

There is a continued dillution of the regular season and fans are going to become increasingly disinteretsed in investing in witnessing it.
Click to expand...
No, it's the effect of exactly what Forde said:

Fans are increasingly less likely to pay higher ticket prices for mismatch games against bad opponents – especially when more games than ever are on TV or online, and the home viewing experience has never been better. The Saturday stadium experience is a wonderful thing, but getting fans to shell out for Elon, Murray State and Chattanooga is a tough sell.
P.T. Barnum said there's a sucker born every minute, and a whole bunch of them grew up to become college football fans. That's the only explanation for why we've put up with the bowl cartel and lousy scheduling as long as we have.
But the public is showing signs of wising up and realizing it has a choice. If the games aren't good enough, don't go. Maybe that's what happened the first weekend of the season. If so, the sport's greedy power brokers had better take heed.
Click to expand...
 

Goldmember said:
There is a continued dillution of the regular season and fans are going to become increasingly disinteretsed in investing in witnessing it.
Click to expand...

*Enormous Eye Roll*

The difference between the #2 and #4 team in an average season is so infinitesimal as to almost be meaningless.
 

station19 said:
I got the impression the move to Thurs was pretty much a done deal. I guess we'll have to wait to find out. I'm betting it will happen, makes too much sense.
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This was my take as well. It sounds like the agreements are in place but just need official ratification or whatnot. They won't change the schedules until the legal stuff is done, but given the fact that both the U and the State Fair are on board I don't see what would keep that from happening.
 

GoAUpher said:
This was my take as well. It sounds like the agreements are in place but just need official ratification or whatnot. They won't change the schedules until the legal stuff is done, but given the fact that both the U and the State Fair are on board I don't see what would keep that from happening.
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I guess I personally don't mind a night, but a couple big negatives to it..

- It's Thursday before Labor Day weekend. most students that will be sophomores/juniors aren't moved back in to class, and the ones that live close (ie in the TC with their families) won't make the drive because of the inconvenience/lack of parking (the stadium and infrastructure was built to bring in 40,000 fans by car/rail with the 10k students walking there. not to mention the price of parking).
- Can't tailgate nearly as well/long. Most of us work, getting off at 4-4:30 is a stretch probably, getting home to change and get gear, on campus by 5:30 at BEST with traffic leaves little to enjoy pregame festivities. As much as we complain about 11 AM starts a 7 PM start is that much worse for pre-game atmosphere.
- Those reasons above (timing difficulty for working joes) make getting the casual fan to attend that much MORE difficult.
- (I'm a former bando..) Will the band be ready? They've already cut back so much camp time due to budget, this would be difficult to prepare.

The obvious positives:
- Fewer competition from other games around the country making it possible to get more eyes on the TV in the cities watching the team
- Night game atmosphere could be good, especially if you can fill the stands somewhat
- Avoid the state fair Saturday and Cabin-goer excuses (though I wager that many people still make it to the fair on Thursday night)
- You could do the mandatory welcome week training AT the game, getting those 5,500 freshman there and rockin to make it loud while teaching them something as the game is actually happening. The event is only so good as it doesn't mirror the actual excitement come gameday
 

RailBaronYarr said:
- You could do the mandatory welcome week training AT the game, getting those 5,500 freshman there and rockin to make it loud while teaching them something as the game is actually happening. The event is only so good as it doesn't mirror the actual excitement come gameday
Click to expand...

I don't know about this one....the last time a sporting event was made "mandatory," it didn't work out too well for the home team.

 

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