Biggest Change in Football Fans
- Thread starter NCPitt
- Start date
pittdan77
Athletic Director
No idea how solid this data is but I imagine his DM's are pretty wild. Would be fun to see just what the Hoopies are writing.
There’s not a ton of reason to doubt it.
It’s basically just a comparison of low points vs good/high points.
I would be very surprised if most teams didn’t see an increase in attendance when they are good, and a decrease when they suck.
The U is coming back baby! I am telling you! And anyone seeing any game from UCLA could agree they would be close to the bottom.
It would also make sense that the quality of play would most impact attendance in cities.
Looking at the chart, the extreme ends are dominated by cities. Pitt, Miami, Chicago, LA, Cincinnati, and even NY.
Those are going to be the places where it’s most difficult to get people to go to a college football game, because there’s a ton of options. So you better have a quality product you can sell them.
Other than if you believe the stadium averaged 80% capacity during a 3-9 season...
pittdan77
Athletic Director
They used to rely on SMF to spitball the actual but he only counted the sections he could see from his couch.
pittdan77
Athletic Director
That isn't what some fan bases would have you believe but I agree. Weather can also aggravate circumstances but I think there is a general window of attendance for most schools, good and bad. I think there is a bump from certain opponents that factor in, too. Will be fascinating to see what happens with all of this realignment. Big12 especially.
When I was at the Tennessee game, one of the fans near me pointed to an empty section of seats up top and was like, "Look at that. That's freaking embarrassing," or something like that.
I wanted to tell him, "Buddy, you have no freaking idea!" Lol. I think there were still 80-something at that game.
pittdan77
Athletic Director
It's weird how attendance vs capacity became such a big deal. It's all very relative.
You think Pitt reports actual turnstile count?
Here's another example. Penn State. Seat numbers on their bleachers are only painted like 18 inches apart. If there attendance was 50K, it would look 100% full on TV because there would be no empty space or seatbacks so they could report 100K. That is one advantage of bleacher seating. The place always look full as long as you can fill 50%
We know that you know better.
The guy completely made up the numbers and they bear no sense to reality, right?
Are you not understanding? I am saying that colleges make up attendance numbers. So the numbers that guy gets are just made-up numbers. Nobody reports actual turnstile account.
what constitutes "tons" of options on a Saturday at noon in mid October Pittsburgh?
Yes, everyone lies about attendance. The reason why is simple, just look at all the advertisements during a game. When you're selling ads, more people means more money.
However, I don't think anyone is announcing anything over tickets sold. Pick a number in between turnstile and tickets sold.
However, I don't think anyone is announcing anything over tickets sold. Pick a number in between turnstile and tickets sold.
I disagree. I think some use tickets sold, some use tickets distributed (ie we gave the local schools 5000 free tickets, maybe 300 will show up but lets count it), and some just use a completely made up number. Pitt just makes up a number.
I attended the Pitt at Miami game in 2016. They listed the attendance as 51,796. It was actually about 35k. Pitt has never had a discrepancy that high.
I was actually at that game too. Not sure what they listed but yea, half full. I was surprised though because the crowd was pretty loud and into the game. Odd place to watch a game because it feels like you are sitting indoors watching a game being played outside. For about 5-10 minutes, there was a terrible downpour and we were dry as a bone. Got to meet Russell Maryland before the game. Miami did a nice job with the pregame stuff. They have like a legends tent where you can meet a legend. Pitt should do that.
Pitt does make up a number, and it's always between tickets sold and actual attendance.
I believe now it would be technically between tickets distributed (as opposed to sold) and actual attendance.
I also know that when Steve Pederson was here, the numbers were completely made up and had little relation at all to any real numbers, tickets sold, tickets distributed, turnstile count, or any other "real" number. He would be given all that information, and then he would tell the athletic department lackeys the number that they were going to announce. And usually that number had no relation to anything real.
Also, in the tickets distributed number, schools count all season tickets sold or given away (free at some schools). So if 1000 students show up for a rainy Thursday night, Pitt is counting 10K because they sold all of them for $20/season.
