Falling football attendance, implications and consequences

Says students who don't attend the sports games don't donate money later. Ouch!

Not exactly ground-breaking reporting that attendance is down at games at schools whose FB programs blow.

It's not rocket science to explain why this is happening and something we have seen ourselves at Fitton ovah the last 25 years as well.

People (alumni/students/general populace) just don't put a premium on attending college football games like they did a generation or two ago. We've outlined the reasons here a bunch of times: changing social attitudes (family/parental obligations on Saturdays), the explosion of media (a zillion college games on TV, games streamed on the internet etc), a societal change where the football game isn't the primary focus on campuses like they once were.....etc etc etc

I don't think it speaks a "death-knell" for college football at our level howevah....it's not like HC, the Ivies etc. were drawing 40K, 50K a week regularly in the 1970s and 1980s. Outside of Harvard-Yale, Holy Cross-BC...most schools at our level were drawing in the 10-20K back then....it's not insignificant but I would say the new normal for most PL/CAA/IL football crowds is in the 7-12K range today instead of maybe the 15-20K it was a generation ago.

A definite drop....but not a huge one imo.

I am shocked that this was posted by PP. He loves sports!

Umm losing half your average attendance in a generation is not a huge deal?

I don't think (in HC's case anyway) it's quite half of what it once was. If memory serves, I would say your typical Fitton attendance in the 1970s and 1980s would fall into roughly 3 categories:

1. Big Game: eg. BC home-game, a game against a very good opponent at the time (Yale 81, Colgate 83, a strong UMass or Harvard, maybe a Syracuse, Temple, Rutgers team in the 1970s)
Crowds would typically be in the 18-25K range.....there probably weren't more than 10-15 of these from 1970-1990.

2. Homecoming/Family Weekend......depending on our success that year, the opponent, weather etc...I'd estimate a majority of the crowds were in the 12-18K range from 1970-1990.

3. Every other game basically: I think a vast majority of the games played at Fitton from 1970-1990 (not in the above two categories) were played before crowds as small as 5K-8K (weather, bad year for us or poor opponent) or in the 8-15K range.

I do think attendance has dropped off a great deal in the last 25 or so years.....but not as dramatically as you'd think. 

Interesting article. Ominous trend.

Interesting but applicable to only the big boys. We will consistently continue to get a nice little crowds for our home games, especially if we win. Bigger night games can draw 13-16k, meaningless foul weather games will continue to draw poorly.

Fortunately for college football it's the greatest game on Earth, so it will never die. Pendulum will swing back from virtual reality to actual reality again.