# College Football Declining Attendance 4 Consectutive Years



## WhatInThe (Aug 31, 2018)

College Football showing an attendance decline of 7.6%. 4th Consecutive year of declines. Average attendance at game only 71% of sold tickets. Problem for parking, food and souvenir vendors. Division I college sports requires 15,000 average attendance. From Wall Street Journal.  

https://www.businessreport.com/article/college-footballs-growing-problem-empty-stadium-seats

My guess there are many of the same issues of attending a pro game-excessive ticket, parking, food and concession prices.


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## Falcon (Aug 31, 2018)

I'm  taking a knee on this one.  Too  many wealthy  players  involved  in politics  as well as playing the game.


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## WhatInThe (Aug 31, 2018)

Big college equals big business. If one includes the athlete's scholarship, housing, food and medical care many are averaging 50-100K a year in compensation even though not a salary. Some of the high profile school coaches are getting multi million dollar contracts as well. I think the spirit of college athletics has gotten lost in the shuffle.


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## Buckeye (Aug 31, 2018)

Buckeyes continue to sell out every game, and it seems like they have done so forever.  Same with the other top tier teams.  As you move down market, things get worse.  I have a better seat at home than anywhere in the stadium.  Beer's cheaper too.


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## badvlad69 (Dec 4, 2018)

Movies took a hit in the 50's when TV made sitting at home more palatable. Big screen plasmas with kick ass sound systems are doing the same thing to pretty much all sporting events in the 21st century. The franchises and programs are largely unaffected as the TV revenue more than offsets the lost ticket sales, but ancillary businesses (vendors, restaurants, etc) are loosing ground. Their $ are going to electronics outlets and cable providers.

And yeah, sky high prices make the decision to attend in person a scary one.


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## Don M. (Dec 4, 2018)

It's not just the college games that are losing fans....many of the pro games are showing a lot of empty seats in the stands as the TV cameras pan the field.  One team, recently...Tampa Bay...even recently announced a giveaway of free tickets, so they can '"appear" to be maintaining a solid fan base.


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## C'est Moi (Dec 4, 2018)

Falcon said:


> I'm  taking a knee on this one.  Too  many wealthy  players  involved  in politics  as well as playing the game.



I agree about millionaires behaving badly, but this thread is about college sports.

As for professional football, we gave up on that a couple of years ago and haven't missed it at all.   Pro athletes and "entertainers" need to keep their causes to themselves and just do what they are paid to do.


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## Trade (Dec 10, 2018)

College Football declining? 

You wouldn't know it around here. 

Just about everyone here is nuts about college football. You see "Roll Tide" signs everywhere. 

And our star quarter back is from Hawaii. 

Now that's something.


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## oldman (Dec 10, 2018)

Alabama is a winner. Everyone either goes to see Alabama clobber their opponent or hoping that their opponent clobbers them. 

No one is going to pay money out of their pocket and waste hours of their time to watch a perennial loser play. At least, I’m not. 

This is another reason why the rules of the game have been changed so much over the past 20 years to favor the offense. People want to see scoring. The thrill of those days of going to watch a 1-0 no-hitter are over. Spectators want to see basketball games with scores of 70-80 and football scores of 56-24. The more scoring, the better. And, at the pro level, higher scores are even better.


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## Butterfly (Dec 13, 2018)

Trade said:


> College Football declining?
> 
> You wouldn't know it around here.
> 
> ...



When we were stationed at Huntsville Arsenal in Alabama, my boss was an Alabama alumnus and had season tickets to the football games.  He didn't go to the games much and gave me his tickets when he wasn't going to attend.   This was back in the Bear Bryant days and we were absolutely thrilled to get those tickets.  We enjoyed every minute of every game we got to go to and always had a wonderful time.  We went to an Alabama/Auburn game once and that was the high point.  I never realized a crowd could make so much noise!  Great times!


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