College Football attendance is dropping

[mbe 34]

Pittsburgh isn't the only school who reports attendance higher than actual attendees.
I thought the funniest thing in the article was Michigan - they claim a streak of 100K plus.
They are only showing 80K scanned but so many fans rush to get in the ticket takers just tear the tickets in half and they add over 20K to keep the streak alive.

Bottom line for this board - Pitt isn't alone in fudging attendance numbers.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/college-footballs-growing-problem-empty-seats-1535634001

 

[mcm265]

Cost, Convenience, and Culture. Ticket/housing/parking prices are a higher % of millennial's budgets. The television experience is better than ever. Young people care less about sports than older generations. Every sport is getting squeezed by these 3 forces - not just CFB.

 

[BuffetParrothead]

All of the below are obstacles to increasing sports attendance.

Time/ lenght of games, road congestion, parking lot congestion/ issues, parking cost, high cost of sports tickets in general, high cost of food & beverage at the venues, high cost and limited lodging opportunities close to sports venues, hassles/excluded items and time in security lines, increase in competing family activities, decline in sports as various controversies erupt and the 24/7 news media covers everything the players do and say which turns off some fans, media reporting of impact of things like concussions even though they know nothing about the issue, and there's more ways to watch sports today than every before.

"it's five o'clock somewhere"
Signed: Mr Buffett
Go PITT & CSU Rams!

 

[California Gold]

It’s simple...

The iGen/GenZ (95-12) generation (you could also include the older Millennials (80-95)) would rather play and/or watch a 3 hour live feed of Fortnite (or insert the next biggest video game craze) than get outside and waste 3-5 hours at a live sporting event.

 

[McKee Place]

I think the issue is we are surrounded with 5 of the programs that give football such high priority (and thus their fanbases) that they actually buck the trend.

Ohio State
Penn State
West Virginia

These are probably the most likely to sustain their attendances.

Throw in Notre Dame and Michigan, not exactly "surrounding" us but with such big umbrellas that it's felt here.

That definitely exasperates the optics of our situation IMO. Think about if we were a little more east, and best compared to Syracuse, Rutgers, Maryland, Temple and BC. We would look like the "cult" in comparison!

 

[Lionrevival]

Culture is changing, very little reason to put a child through football. The reward is rarely worth the risks. This impacts football in general, viewership will continue to drop and eventually this sport will become like boxing, a hardline fanbase, but the numbers show up only on rare occasions.

 

[revampedpanthers]

Culture is changing, very little reason to put a child through football. The reward is rarely worth the risks. This impacts football in general, viewership will continue to drop and eventually this sport will become like boxing, a hardline fanbase, but the numbers show up only on rare occasions.

I don't disagree but I think it will be a long time before FB is passed as the most popular sport. I think in general sports attendance is down across the board. Kids are way more involved in extra curricular activities than in the past. Little johnny now plays baseball in the fall traveling team. Parents used to go to a few football games but now travel around the east coast taking him to games. Also the TV experience is just so much better than it was a few decades ago. Easy to have some friends over and watch the game on a 60" HD tv with surround sound. After a couple games the TV is paid off by the savings. College football isn't doing itself any favors with realignments that have ended long rivalry games (psu vs pitt really isn't a victim here but NB vs OK or TX is)