College football attendance down again

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College football attendance down again

Post by VegasAggie71 » February 13th, 2018, 11:03 am

College football attendance declined again in 2017, and the decline was substantial. It's a problem at both P5 and non P5 schools. Also, it's all ages too as not as many students are going to games. I know it comes up often on this board, but it's not just a USU problem. The below article discusses further and even mentions that some schools are looking into downsizing their stadiums. Not sure there are any easy solutions.

https://www.cbssports.com/college-footb ... -34-years/



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Re: College football attendance down again

Post by LKGates » February 13th, 2018, 11:59 am

Arizona State has been in the middle of this. Their stadium capacity was 70,000. It is now 56,000. They reduced the number of seats, but increased the overall quality of the stadium. That, at a time that the Phoenix metro area is experiencing continued strong growth.


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Re: College football attendance down again

Post by oleblu111 » February 13th, 2018, 12:11 pm

Attendance at USU is actually up this year, however we have always had weak attendance, and we already have the smallest FBS stadium in the west so no need to increase it or reduce it. No sellouts in 2017 not even BYU or BSU.

MWC overall attendance was also up.



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Re: College football attendance down again

Post by thegreendalegelf » February 13th, 2018, 1:05 pm

Like people said, USU attendance went up. But we were also the 2nd highest Attendance percentage in the MW. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Moun ... all_season)

1. Boise with 88.6% sellout
2. USU with 78.8%
3. CSU with 77.8%
4. Fresno with 74.7%
...
11. Hawai'i with 48.5%
12. San Jose with 46.6%

Not a great year in attendance for USU, but not the worst. Coming off a 3-9 season and going 6-7, we did respectable.



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Re: College football attendance down again

Post by thegreendalegelf » February 13th, 2018, 1:08 pm

If we go simply off average attendance, we finished 9th with 20,108 per game.
New Mexico was 7th with 21,194
Wyoming was 8th with 20,614
UNLV was 10th with 17,449



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Re: College football attendance down again

Post by ViAggie » February 13th, 2018, 1:16 pm

I wonder if sporting event attendance is down across the country, not just college fb. I'm guessing it's largely due to varioius factors.


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Re: College football attendance down again

Post by Aglicious » February 13th, 2018, 1:34 pm

oleblu111 wrote:
February 13th, 2018, 12:11 pm
Attendance at USU is actually up this year, however we have always had weak attendance, and we already have the smallest FBS stadium in the west so no need to increase it or reduce it. No sellouts in 2017 not even BYU or BSU.

MWC overall attendance was also up.
Depends on how you measure attendance. Going by raw attendance numbers is not exactly an apples to apples comparison or a good indicator of well a community actually supports their schools/team. I know that doesn't fit your narrative and I have spent more time than I can quantify at this point already arguing the matter far before you started pushing your lack of donations and support agenda so I won't go into it all over again.



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Re: College football attendance down again

Post by Aglicious » February 13th, 2018, 1:36 pm

thegreendalegelf wrote:
February 13th, 2018, 1:08 pm
If we go simply off average attendance, we finished 9th with 20,108 per game.
New Mexico was 7th with 21,194
Wyoming was 8th with 20,614
UNLV was 10th with 17,449
Then again, we could average a sell out every game a still have it be possible that we come in dead last in the average attendance. Would this still mean we suck and have no fan base and don't support our team?



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Re: College football attendance down again

Post by ProvoAggie » February 13th, 2018, 2:14 pm

The cost of tickets for football games has become outrageous most places. If the team slips at all then people will find better ways to spend their money.



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Re: College football attendance down again

Post by oleblu111 » February 13th, 2018, 2:43 pm

Aglicious wrote:
February 13th, 2018, 1:34 pm
oleblu111 wrote:
February 13th, 2018, 12:11 pm
Attendance at USU is actually up this year, however we have always had weak attendance, and we already have the smallest FBS stadium in the west so no need to increase it or reduce it. No sellouts in 2017 not even BYU or BSU.

MWC overall attendance was also up.
Depends on how you measure attendance. Going by raw attendance numbers is not exactly an apples to apples comparison or a good indicator of well a community actually supports their schools/team. I know that doesn't fit your narrative and I have spent more time than I can quantify at this point already arguing the matter far before you started pushing your lack of donations and support agenda so I won't go into it all over again.
I measure attendance by the number of people reported to be at the game that is about as apples to apples as there is, if folks want to say that because we have a tiny stadium having 20,000 average is great support ok. I always thought that if you have a small stadium that was kind of a reflection of fan support. If you want to believe that USU has great community, and alum support go right ahead. I just disagree.



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Re: College football attendance down again

Post by Full » February 13th, 2018, 3:37 pm

It's not going to be just one reason. It could be cost, issues with CTE, larger bodies crammed into same space, game times and lengths made TV friendly rather than fan friendly, smartphones, the selection committee and powers that be never allowing in the little guy, generational and lifestyle changes. Some Economist could get a lot of data points and do an analysis to estimate the amount each factor contributes.



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Re: College football attendance down again

Post by Aglicious » February 13th, 2018, 3:52 pm

oleblu111 wrote:
February 13th, 2018, 2:43 pm
Aglicious wrote:
February 13th, 2018, 1:34 pm
oleblu111 wrote:
February 13th, 2018, 12:11 pm
Attendance at USU is actually up this year, however we have always had weak attendance, and we already have the smallest FBS stadium in the west so no need to increase it or reduce it. No sellouts in 2017 not even BYU or BSU.

MWC overall attendance was also up.
Depends on how you measure attendance. Going by raw attendance numbers is not exactly an apples to apples comparison or a good indicator of well a community actually supports their schools/team. I know that doesn't fit your narrative and I have spent more time than I can quantify at this point already arguing the matter far before you started pushing your lack of donations and support agenda so I won't go into it all over again.
I measure attendance by the number of people reported to be at the game that is about as apples to apples as there is, if folks want to say that because we have a tiny stadium having 20,000 average is great support ok. I always thought that if you have a small stadium that was kind of a reflection of fan support. If you want to believe that USU has great community, and alum support go right ahead. I just disagree.
:bananafire: Oh no...no, you are not going to suck me in that easily.



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Re: College football attendance down again

Post by oleblu111 » February 13th, 2018, 4:01 pm

I'm not trying to suck you in we have nothing to debate.



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Re: College football attendance down again

Post by VegasAggie71 » February 13th, 2018, 4:55 pm

Full wrote:
February 13th, 2018, 3:37 pm
It's not going to be just one reason. It could be cost, issues with CTE, larger bodies crammed into same space, game times and lengths made TV friendly rather than fan friendly, smartphones, the selection committee and powers that be never allowing in the little guy, generational and lifestyle changes. Some Economist could get a lot of data points and do an analysis to estimate the amount each factor contributes.
I agree there are multiple factors in play here. While it was great USU increased attendance this year, I think the decline in attendance is going to continue across the board - for many of the reasons you articulate. Even winning more games is no longer a sure way to get increased attendance, as evidenced by some of the programs that are seeing declines in attendance.



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Re: College football attendance down again

Post by TheAKAggie » February 13th, 2018, 10:33 pm

I will start going when players RESPECT THE FLAG! And the troops.


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Re: College football attendance down again

Post by thetrueaggie » February 13th, 2018, 10:49 pm

TheAKAggie wrote:
February 13th, 2018, 10:33 pm
I will start going when players RESPECT THE FLAG! And the troops.


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In college, players come out after the anthem, but that's beside the point. I love football just as much as the next guy, but the amount of media timeouts in a given game has made an outing tiring even for me. I'm curious to see what others think of this.



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Re: College football attendance down again

Post by swordsman1989 » February 13th, 2018, 11:50 pm

I have not been to many college football games in the past 15 years, but all of the ones I have been to have been televised. As a fan in the stadium it is just brutal. Long breaks to accommodate the commercials totally destroys the experience.

I would also submit that the concentration of power among a dozen or so P5 schools, and the emphasis on the 4 team playoffs is also a factor. When you intentionally render 110-115 of the 129 programs irrelevant, people are going to lose interest.



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Re: College football attendance down again

Post by SeattleAg » February 14th, 2018, 12:03 am

TheAKAggie wrote:
February 13th, 2018, 10:33 pm
I will start going when players RESPECT THE FLAG! And the troops.
Yeah, well I will go when they start disrespecting the troops. To their faces. Even troops of Girl Scouts.



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Re: College football attendance down again

Post by BigBlueDart » February 14th, 2018, 11:14 am

TheAKAggie wrote:
February 13th, 2018, 10:33 pm
I will start going when players RESPECT THE FLAG! And the troops.


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Yeah, those troops need to start respecting the flag NOW!



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Re: College football attendance down again

Post by jpswensen » February 14th, 2018, 12:51 pm

I don't think it was linked in the original article or here on the thread, so here is the NCAA document where all these numbers come from.

2017
http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/football_ ... e/2017.pdf

2016
http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/football_ ... e/2016.pdf


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