Does College Football Have A Stadium Attendance Crisis? Because These Photos From Over The Weekend Are SHOCKING
There's been a TON of chatter online about stadium attendance in college football.
On Saturday, we saw dozens of pictures from stadiums across the country that weren't even close to being at full capacity. Of course, it should be pointed out that Saturday was Halloween, which I imagine played some role in the smaller turnouts we saw. But just look at how fucking empty some of these stadiums were:
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I will say, there's a big time market on Twitter for these attendance posts. They just seem to be the easiest form of engagement possible. And this isn't a new thing, either. I've been seeing these types of tweets go viral this entire season.
So to be honest, I don't know how genuine these photos are. I bet some people out there are trying to paint a certain picture about declining attendance just because they know it'll get clicks. But I digress...
These pictures are still alarming no matter how you spin it. So let's evaluate some of the potential reasons why attendance might be slacking.
1. The U.S. Economy
I've seen a lot of people say that the increased cost of living is a major factor in this attendance dilemma. Everything is far too expensive these days, and people have to cut certain expenses in order to make ends meet. I get it.
But at the same time, people are still spending hundreds, if not THOUSANDS of dollars to go to concerts. Musicians are selling out stadiums all the time. And the majority of concerts these days are significantly more expensive than a college football game.
So what's the difference? The fact that you can't watch a concert on TV? The fact that the artist you're going to see is only in town once a year? Compared to a college football team having 7 or 8 home games a season? I don't know.
But I think it's clear that people are still willing to pay big money for tickets to a live event, even with the economy in a rough spot right now.
2. Fans Getting Priced Out
This would be a problem regardless of the poor economy. In this new NIL era, everything that goes into a football game seems to be more costly for the fans. The tickets. The parking. The concessions. These athletic departments need to be making as much money as possible to stay competitive, and the fans are the ones having to cough it up.
But even outside of the athletic departments needing to make money, some of these college towns need to make money. Part of the beauty of college football is that so many schools are in relatively remote areas and the football teams take center stage. But it also means that the local economies are extremely dependent on those seven weeks out of the year when the football team is playing. That's where the businesses in town make all their money.
I'll speak as a Penn State fan here. State College is in the middle of nowhere. It is VERY annoying to get to, and unless you're a local, you're probably gonna have to stay in a hotel. The only problem is that you'd be hard-pressed to find a hotel for less than $500 a night. For bigger games, it's more like $1000 a night. And you're almost certainly gonna have to book a two-night minimum wherever you stay. It's been that way for years.
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Obviously, I can't say that this applies across the board. But I can speak from experience when I say that I have chosen NOT to go to games because it would cost me well over a grand just for one weekend. You can go on an entire vacation with the type of money that some people have to spend on a college football trip these days.
3. NIL And The Transfer Portal
Since we got into NIL a little bit, let's just explore it fully here.
When you went to a college football game back in the day, you were watching players who were students at that university for years. You got to know them. You got to know their stories. You could watch them grow and cheer them on across their entire career at your school.
Nowadays, these rosters are changing every year. You have NIL mercenaries going from program to program to chase a paycheck. You can get attached to a player one season, just for them to leave the next. It's rubbed a lot of fans the wrong way, because it feels as if you care about the school and the program more than those players ever could.
Not to mention, it appears the fans are less patient when it comes to losing now. No longer are these athletes just kids playing a sport that they love. They are full-on professionals who are paid to win football games. And as soon as the product on the field dips, I think it's safe to say that some fans would be more inclined to turn their back on the team. They expect more now, and they have less sympathy when things go wrong.
But I still think there are plenty of fans out there who will love their school the same way that they always have -- who will root for their program relentlessly, no matter what the composition of the roster is or how much people are getting paid. So I don't wanna say that NIL and the transfer portal are totally at fault when it comes to this attendance issue, but I could see it playing a factor.
4. The College Football Playoff
This, I think, would have more of an impact on attendance than NIL and the transfer portal.
College football was never solely about winning a national championship. Winning your conference was a huge milestone. Beating your rival was a huge milestone. Getting to a good bowl game was a huge milestone. And every game of the regular season felt like it really mattered.
But with the expanded playoff, conference championships don't mean a damn thing. Regional rivalries are being wiped away. Bowl games are irrelevant if you aren't in the CFP. And as soon as you get eliminated from the CFP, it feels like there's absolutely nothing left to fight for.
So I can imagine why some fans would feel indifferent. I get why they'd skip out on watching their team play in person. The new age of college football has conditioned them to think that the regular season is meaningless if you aren't competing for a national championship at the end of it.
Even if you are competing for a national championship in the Playoff, that means your fanbase has up to four extra games to attend that season. All of them costing a shit ton of money. Most of them requiring travel to a destination. If you wanna save up the funds to see a game that DOES actually matter, then you're not going to a subpar conference game in October.
(And guess what? The urge to go see your team play a regular season game will only get worse with the 24-team playoff format. Yippee!)
The flip side of this argument, though, is that the majority of the empty stadiums we saw on Saturday were at schools that never had any hope to make it to the Playoff to begin with. So I'm not sure exactly what the rationale is for these fans not showing up.
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I'm also not sure if this is as big of a problem as we're making it out to be. Maybe Halloween Saturday was just an outlier. Nevertheless, I'll be tracking to see if this attendance trend carries on, but I really hope we're not losing the electric home atmospheres that make the sport so great.
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