College Football Attendance Rankings: 2023 CFN Five-Year Program Analysis

[NT80]

7 American Athletic Conference

2018-2022 Attendance Average: 23,740.14

1 East Carolina 41,372
2 Navy 30,973
3 USF 29,650
4 UTSA 28,917
5 Memphis 26,196
6 SMU 24,971
7 UAB 23,058
8 Tulane 21,581
9 Florida Atlantic 20,679
10 North Texas 19,025
11 Rice 19,011
12 Tulsa 18,745
13 Temple 17,277
14 Charlotte 10,907

https://collegefootballnews.com/2023/02/college-football-attendance-rankings-2023-five-year-program-analysis/9

[DeepGreen]

2 minutes ago, NT80 said:

6 SMU 24,971

Really?

[El Paso Eagle]

Attendance = Tickets Sold. not people in seats

[Greenrex]

These numbers are so differently derived! Student population would seem to be an interesting consideration in these quantifying comparisons. North Texas has more students than Rice, Tulsa, and Charlotte combined.
Does Navy's numbers even count because of required student participation?
It still boggles my mind that we have such low attendance numbers.

[Glory to the Green]

Our home schedule should have a better draw this year.

Look at SMU’s home schedule. We should easily be the best attended game….and it should be GREEN!

 

[RBP79]

I cry BS....

Smu over 24000 average attendance??? 

Maybe the AAC will give us a extra 5 to 10000 in the seats this season.

[NT80]

10 hours ago, Glory to the Green said:

Our home schedule should have a better draw this year.

Look at SMU’s home schedule. We should easily be the best attended game….and it should be GREEN!

 

DentonStang was complaining that Aresco gave them a lousy home schedule because of them potentially leaving...  

"There can be no clearer indicator that we are moving out of the conference than this insult of a home schedule, not that I wouldn't do the same thing. Nice parting gift, Aresco."

Smut scheduled the OOC home games themselves against La Tech and Prairie View.   

[NT80]

I thought these programs in the SEC, Big10, and PAC12 underwhelmed with such low attendance averages.  They have National brands visiting them for most of their home games every season.

14 Vanderbilt 29,193

13 Maryland 31,934
14 Northwestern 28,697

10 Stanford 29,965
11 Oregon State 28,400
12 Washington State 26,185

Edited February 25, 2023 by NT80

[Mike Jackson]

On 2/24/2023 at 11:45 PM, Greenrex said:

It still boggles my mind that we have such low attendance numbers

I don't know why that would confuse you.  We think may have been ranked once in that period.  We were 44-44 overall and well below 0.500 vs FBS competition, and 0-5 in bowl games.  Typically the only guaranteed draw we bring in to Apogee annually  is a very modest crowd from SMU or UTSA and that is highly dependent on weather.   And it didn't help that they lost most of the highly anticipated games at Apogee.  Given the program's history it just can't afford to be mediocre.  That is why I was disappointed we didn't take a huge public swing at getting Coach Sanders.  I think thousands of Mean Green alumni are waiting for a big win or big name head coach hire to invest in the program.  We saw proof of that in the Heart of Dallas Bowl.  Just by sheer strength of raw numbers in the local alumni base, an activated engaged alumni could sellout Apogee regularly.  And sustained success on the field could capture larger share of local media coverage than SMU or even a TCU having a couple of back to back losing seasons.  If you really want to understand go on http://www.winsipedia.com find other G5 programs with no conference titles or time ranked in the top 20 in major metro areas with 2 of the other major sport leagues in their area.  Mediocre G5 programs don't draw well unless they are the only game in town.

 

[Mike Jackson]

On 2/25/2023 at 10:45 AM, NT80 said:

14 Vanderbilt 29,193

Please take the SEC's pure charity case out of you list.  I mean we could be in the SEC and outdraw that.  But not by much after the first 5 years of getting blown out regularly and seeing all the all Americans pulled out of the game before halftime.  That is a product local fans would get tired of real quick.

[GrandGreen]

On 2/24/2023 at 10:12 PM, El Paso Eagle said:

Attendance = Tickets Sold. not people in seats

No, it doesn't necessarily mean either one. 

There are two attendance numbers usually kept: reported to public, reported to NCAA: nether one is audited or reliable.

I am sure tickets sold stats are maintained for internal use, but even if it is accurate; there are a lot of questions.  How is student attendance reported, how many free tickets are distributed, etc.  

The eyeball method is probably more reliable, size of stadium and estimated percentage with fans.  The big time programs who actually sell out most tickets probably have close to accurate numbers, but most reported numbers are more than suspect.  

[GrayEagle]

On 2/24/2023 at 7:14 PM, NT80 said:

7 American Athletic Conference

2018-2022 Attendance Average: 23,740.14

1 East Carolina 41,372
2 Navy 30,973
3 USF 29,650
4 UTSA 28,917
5 Memphis 26,196
6 SMU 24,971
7 UAB 23,058
8 Tulane 21,581
9 Florida Atlantic 20,679
10 North Texas 19,025
11 Rice 19,011
12 Tulsa 18,745
13 Temple 17,277
14 Charlotte 10,907

https://collegefootballnews.com/2023/02/college-football-attendance-rankings-2023-five-year-program-analysis/9

I have been keeping some attendance figures for awhile and the figures shown above mostly agree with the figures shown above for 2022, not the 5-year average.  Here are the attendance averages that I show for the five year period 2018-2023:

1 East Carolina  36,588

2 Memphis  34,787

3 South Florida  34,550

4 Navy  32,210

5 Temple  26,787

6 UAB  25,255

7 UTSA  23,423

8 SMU  21,969

9 North Texas  20,724 

10 Rice  20,355

11  Tulane  18,503

12  Tulsa  17,922

13 Florida Atlantic  16,501

14 Charlotte  12,683

 

Five Year Average For The Fourteen Teams  24,447

The source is D1.ticker