FC/OT: Attendance issues across the country yesterday…
- Thread starter Midnighter
- Start date
Minor League football with no salary cap or governance?
How’s attendance for minor league baseball? G-League basketball?
I am not surprised and things will continue to get worse.
Ah well, we always had the Grand Experiment!
Most everyone will disagree with me, but I don't think parents going to every one of their kid's games is always a good thing. It enjoyed the hell out of my early taste of independence through sports and looked forward to talking about how it went at the dinner table with the family.
Yes, tickets sold and distributed. Just like they did under Paterno. I don’t know if the CDT still publishes the fire marshal’s report, which is more of a turnstile count, but it was always less than the officially announced attendance.
Do you think the fact that they are a Pacific coast team playing in the Atlantic Coast Conference might have anything to do with it? Just another insanity among many in today's college football environment.
I don’t believe that the practice is unusual throughout the world of sports. Still it’s indicative of a tight economy in conjunction with a down season.
So, I will throw in my thoughts, nothing ground breaking, just a collection of thoughts - mostly regarding CFB vs. NFL....
1. College before Transfer portal vs. NFL after Free Agency are night and day. I bring that up because college fans got to see a player over 3/4 years. College fans cheer the player as representing the jersey vs. NFL fans (esp after 1993), expect players to move/get traded - NFL fans cheer for the jersey moreso than the player representing the jersey. So, it's tough for college fans to get excited about the current team if they know a significant percentage may not be there the following year. I think this is especially more important if the fan was a student at that University.
2. I recall seeing somewhere that the average travel for CFB fans to a home game is 2 hours. I would imagine that is partly due to a number of P4 schools being in relatively remote areas. (Of course, there are exceptions). The average NFL fan travels less than 45 mnutes to the home team stadium. Travel is not cheap. And it's only gotten more expensive. Add in the costs of food and lodging and it can be quite expensive.
3. There are a plethora of CFB games on multiple networks. So, a fan can simply stay at home and watch their favorite team, other games, and then also have the time to do other things on a CFB Saturday.
4. On a personl note, I disagree that the NFL is a better product. (as someone said). Overall, I find the NFL boring - I would assume partly due to parity. On any given fall weekend, CFB is much better to watch than NFL.
1. College before Transfer portal vs. NFL after Free Agency are night and day. I bring that up because college fans got to see a player over 3/4 years. College fans cheer the player as representing the jersey vs. NFL fans (esp after 1993), expect players to move/get traded - NFL fans cheer for the jersey moreso than the player representing the jersey. So, it's tough for college fans to get excited about the current team if they know a significant percentage may not be there the following year. I think this is especially more important if the fan was a student at that University.
2. I recall seeing somewhere that the average travel for CFB fans to a home game is 2 hours. I would imagine that is partly due to a number of P4 schools being in relatively remote areas. (Of course, there are exceptions). The average NFL fan travels less than 45 mnutes to the home team stadium. Travel is not cheap. And it's only gotten more expensive. Add in the costs of food and lodging and it can be quite expensive.
3. There are a plethora of CFB games on multiple networks. So, a fan can simply stay at home and watch their favorite team, other games, and then also have the time to do other things on a CFB Saturday.
4. On a personl note, I disagree that the NFL is a better product. (as someone said). Overall, I find the NFL boring - I would assume partly due to parity. On any given fall weekend, CFB is much better to watch than NFL.
Moving to the ACC is a part of it. When the PAC 12 broke up Stanford lost all their rivals except Cal. They were playing some of those schools for over 100 years. No one gets excited about games with NC State, Virginia Tech or Clemson.
But they have a lot of problems. Years ago a lot of the students came from California. Now they are from all over the country and all over the world. Some of them stay in the Bay Area after graduation but most of them go somewhere else so there isn't a large body of local alumni to attend games like other big state schools and a lot of the international students don't care about football at all.
The last problem is NIL. I don't know anything about the current Stanford football roster but if they are anything like the football players at Colorado or any other school I can't see the students getting excited about rooting for them. If the players are showing up for one year, not going to class, making some good money, driving their sports cars around at 100 miles and hour like they do at Oregon, then leaving for another school the next year they won't fit in and I can't see the students or faculty caring if they win or lose.
Much like with NCAA basketball, they have destroyed the regular season with the horrible playoffs. It used to be that the regular season in college football was the best in all of sports - each game actually mattered and every win was important because that's where all the focus was. Teams of all levels/strengths could have reasonable targets for the season - winning more games than last year, making a bowl game (or making a NYD bowl), beating a rival, winning your conference, going undefeated, etc. Sure, the goal for PSU wouldn't be the same as for UMD but each team could have things to strive for.
Now, so much emphasis is on the playoff that it makes anything accomplished in the regular season short of that pointless. And with the expanded playoff coming soon - the 23rd "best" team in college football has no business being remotely considered for a "championship" - that will only be exacerbated. Why does any game matter if you can lose 3 or 4 and still potentially make the payoffs? Add in NIL and player transfers and it is not even remotely the same sport as it was in the glory days.
Having a mythical national championship was the best thing for the sport and let tradition and pagentry be what drove things. Now it's just a poor shadow of the NFL and far less interesting for the same sort of product. What's the point? Why homogenize to be just like every other sport in the US rather than be the distinct awesome experience it used to be?
Now, so much emphasis is on the playoff that it makes anything accomplished in the regular season short of that pointless. And with the expanded playoff coming soon - the 23rd "best" team in college football has no business being remotely considered for a "championship" - that will only be exacerbated. Why does any game matter if you can lose 3 or 4 and still potentially make the payoffs? Add in NIL and player transfers and it is not even remotely the same sport as it was in the glory days.
Having a mythical national championship was the best thing for the sport and let tradition and pagentry be what drove things. Now it's just a poor shadow of the NFL and far less interesting for the same sort of product. What's the point? Why homogenize to be just like every other sport in the US rather than be the distinct awesome experience it used to be?
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One of the most awesome aspects of going to PSU and rooting for the team was that you could have classes with the football players and even just interact with them as just fellow students. Like we would see them at bars and McDonalds and stuff. Sure, they were popular/famous especially the stars but they still felt like kin.
Tickets sold (or distributed) is the standard used throughout college football and largely in sports in general. That's often why you hear it referred to as "paid attendance" reflecting the ticket sales.
An interesting historical fact: In MLB before 1993, the NL and AL were still completely seperate leagues that simply had an agreement to work together. The NL used turnstile count for attendance and the AL used ticket sales prior to the merger. After 1993 they both use ticket sales.
I think the large price inflation has certainly hurt. Especially when you compare it to the comfort of watching in your own home. You can get a lot of the fun of the tailgate by getting together with a bunch of fellow alumni/fans to watch together at one's house.
Regarding the last point, there's more of a tendancy for alumni to get jobs farther away after graduation. It used to be for PSU (for example) that most alumni were concentrated in Philly/Pittsburgh or reasonably close in NYC/Baltimore/DC. Now alumni are more likely to be a flight away which makes frequent/regular attendance of games less likely.
The regulars fans still did a pretty good job of showing up minus the new addition on the west side. Student attendance was disgraceful.
At least the NF
I think this is especially true. I think that college football really used to mean something to the players and the fans when the kids were actual students. When the kids are bouncing around from school to school to play college ball for the highest bidder for 6, 7 or 8 years, it becomes a very expensive joke.
Tickets distributed is a blanket for press passes, recruits & families, etc.
I liked the Independent schedules better than playing these Midwest yokels every year. We played a national schedule along with our eastern rivals. I often knew a lot of the kids on Syracuse, BC, Pitt, etc. And then you had ND and Alabama for a decade plus series along with playing Nebreska, USC, Texas, Tennessee, Miami, and on and on. The away games were much better to and in driving distance.
And add in the fact that we opened up the East Coast to these Midwest schmucks when we were the unchallenged Beast of the East for decades. And then of course we were treated like **** when we joined the league and they didn't support us in 94 on top of it but I digress.
I do agree with you, problem is I have to coach the teams. My son’s eight and he throws really well for his age and small size. So do a couple of his friends, but Im not about to let some guy wanting to win a two dollar trophy make my kid throw 96 pitches to win an 8u game. ( that happened against us)
I did take one weekend off to bring the whole family up to the Buffalo game, but I’m just saying that many parents do take every weekend of the fall and make it some type of kids sporting event and don’t head out to college games anymore.
The fact that unranked teams might have a chance to work themselves back into a top 24 position isn't going to help attendance. Those teams have no chance to win, if they do get in, they won't be a home team and their fans know it.
But, if you're a fan of a team from the top 10, you start to consider whether or not you want to attend a regular season game (because we're in the playoffs no matter what so a loss here or there isn't as important), or if I want to save my money to come to one or maybe two on campus playoff games.
Now, everyone is going to adopt “Championships are the standard.” Give me a break. Many pretenders, very few like Penn State.
Too many head cases and drama queens in the NFL agree CFB is a better product.
I have to ask board members is the parking in and out experience better (quicker) in the NFL.
I would imagine concessions have to be a lot worse.
Why do they have no chance?
Do fans still want to make March Madness?
No one is in the playoffs no matter what
Agree on your NFL take, it’s almost unwatchable the first month of the season since starters don’t play during the pre-season. Then, if you get injuries early, those players banking cash quit.
Maybe it’s in a different convo on this board, but Kirby Smart’s assessment is bang on, the product stinks in both CFB and early NFL, imo…
When players started to sit out games, my fandom went down, when they started jumping schools every year, it went down again, when they backed out of commitments for more cash, down again. In 50 years I may have missed 6 home games. In the last two years I have missed 4. Next year I am splitting my seasons tickets with another season ticket holder.
College football is starting to look like the Pittsburgh Pirates. You wait for the start of the season to see who is on the team.
I think its a bunch of things, just like the NFL. Its easier and more cost effective to sit in front of your 80 inch flat screen, have some friends over, have a few beers, stay warm and relax, than it is to mess with it. A lot of the games also suck for the price. And then with the whole NIL crap, its just not the same. There's no pride anymore in playing for a school and biding your time. This product is a joke with no rules.
There is no real reason to have these 110,000 seat stadiums anymore. Make smaller ones with way more perks and people will come.
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