College Football Has Its Largest Attendance Drop in 34 Years

[Green P1]

How many stadiums did John Williams buy seats in?????

[97and03]

17 hours ago, Mean Green 93-98 said:

I thought I had heard at one point that the administration had set a ceiling on attendance.  The fact that admissions are much more selective tells us that numbers aren't driving things as much as they once did.

I have the impression Thor was talking about our attendance.

[UNTLifer]

6 hours ago, untjim1995 said:

Football is the sport that is most susceptible to this change in interest.

Why?

[untjim1995]

5 minutes ago, UNTLifer said:

Why?

Injuries, time, attention, cost, etc...t

[Keith7]

I'm sure it's all those players kneeling for the anthem.. Isn't that what conservatives victoriously say the NFL's drop is due to?

[untjim1995]

24 minutes ago, Keith7 said:

I'm sure it's all those players kneeling for the anthem.. Isn't that what conservatives victoriously say the NFL's drop is due to?

There is no doubt that the anthem deal killed their ratings...

[MeanGreenTeeth]

I dunno.  I think football in general, and the NFL in particular, has been over-exposed the last few years and I think a lot of folks have just started to get burned out.   I got into fantasy league for a couple years and watched a tremendous number of games.  This last year I didn't play and I was so tired of watching NFL games that the only game I watched the whole year was the Super Bowl.

[southsideguy]

i play fantasy football but dont watch the games, maybe that is why I dont win the leagues.

[Christopher Walker]

On 2/14/2018 at 11:31 AM, forevereagle said:

Mostly it says that they stream sports online and more frequently illegally with more of that attributed to 18-24 year olds. Oddly, the younger people with less money don't have subscription TV services. 

It is a footnote at the bottom that fewer say they follow sports or follow sports that are not the same sports that you do. It says nothing about injuries or time or any reasoning about why that may be. 

Given how little is said about survey methodology, where the 1,500 people surveyed were from, and some of the exact questions from the survey, I have doubts about the validity of the data. If this is a global study, the higher percent that don't follow sports could be cultural for the part of the world they are from. The other issue here is that it is obviously not a representative sample given that ~1,000 of the 1,500 were "millennials" (that the article does a poor job of defining and using consistently). There are some serious issues with the data presented and how the article treats it.

I would call it an interesting directional article, but nothing conclusive was discovered as part of the study and the article doesn't call any of that into question or seek to look critically at the findings.

This. All of this.

[outoftown]

To me, this is on several parts. I agree that part of this has to do with ADs and conferences having gone overboard cowtowing to the mighty TV dollar, This is even more true for thee G5 than the P5, but it does affect both to some degree.

Maybe there is indeed also a generational effect, but I am sure it is part of what I think is the other driver of this decline: The sport seems absolutely elite heavy to a degree it never has before. Its always been unfair, ut never to this degree.. Yes the UNTs and LaTechs were never likely to win the natty, but the system has become more closed than before and it has become more evident even to the casual fan. And this also affects P5s, where half the teams have no real shot, and all of the G5.  When it doesn't matter whether a team like Alabama wins its conference, and when it does not matter when a team like UCF goes undefeated it sends a strong signal that nothing before the playoffs matters. More games than ever feel like there is nothing to play for. That can't be good for motivating people to go to the games. There simply needs to be more parity.

And then there is a herd effect. Emptier stadiums make for worse atmosphere for the people who actually do go to the stadiums, making it less fun for them getting them to think about going too.

Finally I wonder if the decrease was a bit exagerated this year, with more games being moved around not only due to tv, but also due to a particularly vicious hurricane season.

Edited February 17, 2018 by outoftown