(05-02-2014 10:16 AM)NBPirate Wrote:  

(05-02-2014 10:12 AM)S11 Wrote:  

(05-01-2014 09:28 PM)CougarRed Wrote:  

(05-01-2014 05:26 PM)10thMountain Wrote:  Meanwhile the current AAC averages 33K...and thats with Louisville and Rutgers still counted for 2013. But it gets worse if you sub in those leaving with those going to be in your 14 team league. ECU is an even exchange for Rutgers but Navy's attendance is well below Louisville's and Tulane and Tulsa (who average below 20) help drop that figure down to an average of 25K....which is slightly less than the MWC's 26K

Your numbers are off. Here are the 5-year attendance averages (2009-13) for the 2015 line up of the following conferences:

American - 30,671
MWC - 25,961
CUSA - 20,311

Bear in mind that Houston and Tulane will get "new stadium" bumps this year. And ECU, Tulsa and Tulane will get "new conference" bumps this year.

The difference between the American and the ACC, Big 12 and Pac 12 is that instead of having several schools like USC, UCLA, Washington, Arizona St, Texas, OU, Florida St, Clemson and Va Tech pulling our average up to 50-55K, we have Temple, Tulane, Tulsa and SMU pulling our average down to 31K.

The other 8 schools in the American draw similarly to the "rank & file" in the ACC, Big 12 and Pac 12, and would likely match or exceed them if given a P5 opportunity.

The AAC has a few schools like ECU, UCF, USF, and UConn that reliably can put up averages of greater than 35k so far. However that doesn't mean the league's public schools as a whole are the same as the "rank & file" P5 league teams.

The average for the public schools in the AAC that will be there in 2014 is 34,292.


"Rank and file" P5 averages:

Big 12 other than UT or OU: 50,667
Pac 12 other than USC, Oregon, Washington, UCLA: 45,751
ACC other than Clemson, FSU, VT: 43,960
B1G "rank and file" (Illini, Iowa, NW, Maryland, Minnesota, Purdue, Rutgers): 47,470
SEC Bottom 6: 56,911


Even if you took 4k in average attendance away from the lowest P5 performer (ACC) to estimate the effect of having national powers come to your stadium it would still be a 5k advantage for the ACC over the public schools of the AAC.

No disrespect intended but both attendance and budgets bear out the disparity in support. All of the AAC budgets except for UConn and SMU would struggle to equal the low end of the P5 budgets even if you added 20mm to the total to estimate larger tv payouts and league distributions.

But ECU, UCF, and USF have all averaged at least 45k for a season. Thats a quarter of the league in P5 standards.

You are probably responding to lazy phrasing on my part. Does the bolded rewrite above work better?

(05-02-2014 10:21 AM)S11 Wrote:  

(05-02-2014 10:16 AM)NBPirate Wrote:  

(05-02-2014 10:12 AM)S11 Wrote:  

(05-01-2014 09:28 PM)CougarRed Wrote:  

(05-01-2014 05:26 PM)10thMountain Wrote:  Meanwhile the current AAC averages 33K...and thats with Louisville and Rutgers still counted for 2013. But it gets worse if you sub in those leaving with those going to be in your 14 team league. ECU is an even exchange for Rutgers but Navy's attendance is well below Louisville's and Tulane and Tulsa (who average below 20) help drop that figure down to an average of 25K....which is slightly less than the MWC's 26K

Your numbers are off. Here are the 5-year attendance averages (2009-13) for the 2015 line up of the following conferences:

American - 30,671
MWC - 25,961
CUSA - 20,311

Bear in mind that Houston and Tulane will get "new stadium" bumps this year. And ECU, Tulsa and Tulane will get "new conference" bumps this year.

The difference between the American and the ACC, Big 12 and Pac 12 is that instead of having several schools like USC, UCLA, Washington, Arizona St, Texas, OU, Florida St, Clemson and Va Tech pulling our average up to 50-55K, we have Temple, Tulane, Tulsa and SMU pulling our average down to 31K.

The other 8 schools in the American draw similarly to the "rank & file" in the ACC, Big 12 and Pac 12, and would likely match or exceed them if given a P5 opportunity.

The AAC has a few schools like ECU, UCF, USF, and UConn that reliably can put up averages of greater than 35k so far. However that doesn't mean the league's public schools as a whole are the same as the "rank & file" P5 league teams.

The average for the public schools in the AAC that will be there in 2014 is 34,292.


"Rank and file" P5 averages:

Big 12 other than UT or OU: 50,667
Pac 12 other than USC, Oregon, Washington, UCLA: 45,751
ACC other than Clemson, FSU, VT: 43,960
B1G "rank and file" (Illini, Iowa, NW, Maryland, Minnesota, Purdue, Rutgers): 47,470
SEC Bottom 6: 56,911


Even if you took 4k in average attendance away from the lowest P5 performer (ACC) to estimate the effect of having national powers come to your stadium it would still be a 5k advantage for the ACC over the public schools of the AAC.

No disrespect intended but both attendance and budgets bear out the disparity in support. All of the AAC budgets except for UConn and SMU would struggle to equal the low end of the P5 budgets even if you added 20mm to the total to estimate larger tv payouts and league distributions.

But ECU, UCF, and USF have all averaged at least 45k for a season. Thats a quarter of the league in P5 standards.

You are probably responding to lazy phrasing on my part. Does the bolded rewrite above work better?

How are they not though? Those schools (ECU, UCF, and USF) have consistently averaged better than the bottom rung of the P5 on a 5 year basis.

(05-02-2014 11:32 AM)NBPirate Wrote:  

(05-02-2014 10:21 AM)S11 Wrote:  

(05-02-2014 10:16 AM)NBPirate Wrote:  

(05-02-2014 10:12 AM)S11 Wrote:  

(05-01-2014 09:28 PM)CougarRed Wrote:  Your numbers are off. Here are the 5-year attendance averages (2009-13) for the 2015 line up of the following conferences:

American - 30,671
MWC - 25,961
CUSA - 20,311

Bear in mind that Houston and Tulane will get "new stadium" bumps this year. And ECU, Tulsa and Tulane will get "new conference" bumps this year.

The difference between the American and the ACC, Big 12 and Pac 12 is that instead of having several schools like USC, UCLA, Washington, Arizona St, Texas, OU, Florida St, Clemson and Va Tech pulling our average up to 50-55K, we have Temple, Tulane, Tulsa and SMU pulling our average down to 31K.

The other 8 schools in the American draw similarly to the "rank & file" in the ACC, Big 12 and Pac 12, and would likely match or exceed them if given a P5 opportunity.

The AAC has a few schools like ECU, UCF, USF, and UConn that reliably can put up averages of greater than 35k so far. However that doesn't mean the league's public schools as a whole are the same as the "rank & file" P5 league teams.

The average for the public schools in the AAC that will be there in 2014 is 34,292.


"Rank and file" P5 averages:

Big 12 other than UT or OU: 50,667
Pac 12 other than USC, Oregon, Washington, UCLA: 45,751
ACC other than Clemson, FSU, VT: 43,960
B1G "rank and file" (Illini, Iowa, NW, Maryland, Minnesota, Purdue, Rutgers): 47,470
SEC Bottom 6: 56,911


Even if you took 4k in average attendance away from the lowest P5 performer (ACC) to estimate the effect of having national powers come to your stadium it would still be a 5k advantage for the ACC over the public schools of the AAC.

No disrespect intended but both attendance and budgets bear out the disparity in support. All of the AAC budgets except for UConn and SMU would struggle to equal the low end of the P5 budgets even if you added 20mm to the total to estimate larger tv payouts and league distributions.

But ECU, UCF, and USF have all averaged at least 45k for a season. Thats a quarter of the league in P5 standards.

You are probably responding to lazy phrasing on my part. Does the bolded rewrite above work better?

How are they not though? Those schools (ECU, UCF, and USF) have consistently averaged better than the bottom rung of the P5 on a 5 year basis.

1- I referred to the AAC's public schools as an aggregate. So while ECU and UCF spike the average that figure also includes Temple, UC, UH, and Memphis which collectively average 28k and drag the league average down.

2- Define bottom rung? Most of the P5 teams average in the 45-55k range. The bottom 25 averaged 42k. The 3 schools you cherry picked averaged around that 42k over the past 5 years. Nobody is arguing bad attendance for ECU, but for the league as a whole every AAC public not named ECU, UConn, USF, or UCF averages under the average of the bottom 10 of P5 membership over the past 5 years.

3- Budget is another differentiator.

Take out the reported league distributions and the average AAC budget is 36.9 million.

The bottom 25 of the power 5?

43 million.

Without UConn and SMU the AAC average plummets to 33.8k.

Once again its not any disrespect to the schools but the level of support is significantly higher in the P5 leagues across each metric. There are exceptions (ECU's attendance, UConn's budget) but for the most part the "rank and file" P5 outpaces the AAC.

(05-02-2014 11:55 AM)S11 Wrote:  

(05-02-2014 11:32 AM)NBPirate Wrote:  

(05-02-2014 10:21 AM)S11 Wrote:  

(05-02-2014 10:16 AM)NBPirate Wrote:  

(05-02-2014 10:12 AM)S11 Wrote:  The AAC has a few schools like ECU, UCF, USF, and UConn that reliably can put up averages of greater than 35k so far. However that doesn't mean the league's public schools as a whole are the same as the "rank & file" P5 league teams.

The average for the public schools in the AAC that will be there in 2014 is 34,292.


"Rank and file" P5 averages:

Big 12 other than UT or OU: 50,667
Pac 12 other than USC, Oregon, Washington, UCLA: 45,751
ACC other than Clemson, FSU, VT: 43,960
B1G "rank and file" (Illini, Iowa, NW, Maryland, Minnesota, Purdue, Rutgers): 47,470
SEC Bottom 6: 56,911


Even if you took 4k in average attendance away from the lowest P5 performer (ACC) to estimate the effect of having national powers come to your stadium it would still be a 5k advantage for the ACC over the public schools of the AAC.

No disrespect intended but both attendance and budgets bear out the disparity in support. All of the AAC budgets except for UConn and SMU would struggle to equal the low end of the P5 budgets even if you added 20mm to the total to estimate larger tv payouts and league distributions.

But ECU, UCF, and USF have all averaged at least 45k for a season. Thats a quarter of the league in P5 standards.

You are probably responding to lazy phrasing on my part. Does the bolded rewrite above work better?

How are they not though? Those schools (ECU, UCF, and USF) have consistently averaged better than the bottom rung of the P5 on a 5 year basis.

1- I referred to the AAC's public schools as an aggregate. So while ECU and UCF spike the average that figure also includes Temple, UC, UH, and Memphis which collectively average 28k and drag the league average down.

2- Define bottom rung? Most of the P5 teams average in the 45-55k range. The bottom 25 averaged 42k. The 3 schools you cherry picked averaged around that 42k over the past 5 years. Nobody is arguing bad attendance for ECU, but for the league as a whole every AAC public not named ECU, UConn, USF, or UCF averages under the average of the bottom 10 of P5 membership over the past 5 years.

3- Budget is another differentiator.

Take out the reported league distributions and the average AAC budget is 36.9 million.

The bottom 25 of the power 5?

43 million.

Without UConn and SMU the AAC average plummets to 33.8k.

Once again its not any disrespect to the schools but the level of support is significantly higher in the P5 leagues across each metric. There are exceptions (ECU's attendance, UConn's budget) but for the most part the "rank and file" P5 outpaces the AAC.

It's a bit of a "chicken or the egg" argument. When comparing P5 to G5 attendance/budgets, you have to take into account the respective conferences that those schools play in. Part of the great attendance numbers for the P5 is that they play big name competition throughout the football season. Likewise, most have higher athletic budgets due to generating higher revenue from being a part of the in crowd.

The question is how much of an affect does conference affiliation have on attendance/budget? I think it has a pretty large one. There are some P5 schools that would still have great numbers, but IMO a good amount of those P5s would see a drop-off if they got relegated down to the G5.

(05-02-2014 12:52 PM)HuskyU Wrote:  

(05-02-2014 11:55 AM)S11 Wrote:  

(05-02-2014 11:32 AM)NBPirate Wrote:  

(05-02-2014 10:21 AM)S11 Wrote:  

(05-02-2014 10:16 AM)NBPirate Wrote:  But ECU, UCF, and USF have all averaged at least 45k for a season. Thats a quarter of the league in P5 standards.

You are probably responding to lazy phrasing on my part. Does the bolded rewrite above work better?

How are they not though? Those schools (ECU, UCF, and USF) have consistently averaged better than the bottom rung of the P5 on a 5 year basis.

1- I referred to the AAC's public schools as an aggregate. So while ECU and UCF spike the average that figure also includes Temple, UC, UH, and Memphis which collectively average 28k and drag the league average down.

2- Define bottom rung? Most of the P5 teams average in the 45-55k range. The bottom 25 averaged 42k. The 3 schools you cherry picked averaged around that 42k over the past 5 years. Nobody is arguing bad attendance for ECU, but for the league as a whole every AAC public not named ECU, UConn, USF, or UCF averages under the average of the bottom 10 of P5 membership over the past 5 years.

3- Budget is another differentiator.

Take out the reported league distributions and the average AAC budget is 36.9 million.

The bottom 25 of the power 5?

43 million.

Without UConn and SMU the AAC average plummets to 33.8k.

Once again its not any disrespect to the schools but the level of support is significantly higher in the P5 leagues across each metric. There are exceptions (ECU's attendance, UConn's budget) but for the most part the "rank and file" P5 outpaces the AAC.

It's a bit of a "chicken or the egg" argument. When comparing P5 to G5 attendance/budgets, you have to take into account the respective conferences that those schools play in. Part of the great attendance numbers for the P5 is that they play big name competition throughout the football season. Likewise, most have higher athletic budgets due to generating higher revenue from being a part of the in crowd.

The question is how much of an affect does conference affiliation have on attendance/budget? I think it has a pretty large one. There are some P5 schools that would still have great numbers, but IMO a good amount of those P5s would see a drop-off if they got relegated down to the G5.

I think after a couple of years, we can see some better attendance from some G5 conferences (maybe even this year). There will be more interest of a conference since a G5 champ gets an auto tie to a Major bowl. The Big East even though the top teams weren't ranked that high still garnered interest to see who gets a BCS bid.

(05-02-2014 12:52 PM)HuskyU Wrote:  

(05-02-2014 11:55 AM)S11 Wrote:  

(05-02-2014 11:32 AM)NBPirate Wrote:  

(05-02-2014 10:21 AM)S11 Wrote:  

(05-02-2014 10:16 AM)NBPirate Wrote:  But ECU, UCF, and USF have all averaged at least 45k for a season. Thats a quarter of the league in P5 standards.

You are probably responding to lazy phrasing on my part. Does the bolded rewrite above work better?

How are they not though? Those schools (ECU, UCF, and USF) have consistently averaged better than the bottom rung of the P5 on a 5 year basis.

1- I referred to the AAC's public schools as an aggregate. So while ECU and UCF spike the average that figure also includes Temple, UC, UH, and Memphis which collectively average 28k and drag the league average down.

2- Define bottom rung? Most of the P5 teams average in the 45-55k range. The bottom 25 averaged 42k. The 3 schools you cherry picked averaged around that 42k over the past 5 years. Nobody is arguing bad attendance for ECU, but for the league as a whole every AAC public not named ECU, UConn, USF, or UCF averages under the average of the bottom 10 of P5 membership over the past 5 years.

3- Budget is another differentiator.

Take out the reported league distributions and the average AAC budget is 36.9 million.

The bottom 25 of the power 5?

43 million.

Without UConn and SMU the AAC average plummets to 33.8k.

Once again its not any disrespect to the schools but the level of support is significantly higher in the P5 leagues across each metric. There are exceptions (ECU's attendance, UConn's budget) but for the most part the "rank and file" P5 outpaces the AAC.

It's a bit of a "chicken or the egg" argument. When comparing P5 to G5 attendance/budgets, you have to take into account the respective conferences that those schools play in.

To an extent but not to the great extent many g5 fans like to think.

Quote:Part of the great attendance numbers for the P5 is that they play big name competition throughout the football season.

The P5 schools play around 4 home games vs their league per year. You may not get one or more big traveling opponents in a given year depending on schedule rotations. How many teams other than UW or Oregon are going to travel to Pullman, WA in force?

Assuming 2 are big boys that can bring 9k or more that will still only spike attendance 3k over the course of a season. The bulk of the attendance for a school has more to do with it's own program than it does the other one.

Quote:Likewise, most have higher athletic budgets due to generating higher revenue from being a part of the in crowd.

The budgets I posted subtracted out league distributions from everyone. Other than maybe rationalizing donations going up or down on league membership (which isn't as correlated as successful programs) it's not going to determine the budget.

Team attendance and budgets have more to do with the programs themselves than their leagues once you subtract out league distributions.

Look at TCU, they had a huge budget (70mm+) before the Big 12 membership started paying them 3 and 4 times what they had in the MWC. (Not a full member yet money wise)

Look at UConn, a big budget due to it's large and loyal alumni base and revenue generating hoops program as well as a stadium with solid amenities.

Quote:The question is how much of an affect does conference affiliation have on attendance/budget? I think it has a pretty large one. There are some P5 schools that would still have great numbers, but IMO a good amount of those P5s would see a drop-off if they got relegated down to the G5.

Attendance drop off depends on how many visiting fans show up now and if the program started to struggle more. Even with UT and OU on the schedule BU only averaged around 2k visiting fans last year with a successful program leading us to very high attendance against a very meh early schedule that was Go5 esque. Even our larger visiting totals through the past decade typically went only into the low 4k ranges. That's likely a 3k drop when you consider that schools like SMU and UH usually average around 1-1.5k.

Budgets aren't as likely to drop off IMO. Schools would subsidize in place of most of the lost revenue. Particularly when most of the P5 teams aren't using student fees or institutional support to subsidize athletics at nearly the rate the AAC schools like UCF, USF, UH, Memphis, or Temple are. The 6 Big 12 public schools other than OU (no data on BU or TCU available) only subsidize an average of 3.6mm. The AAC publics? 19.8mm and ECU is the lowest of these at 14mm. The point on subsidy is that even if you removed the large tv distributions a lot of these schools would likely subsidize enough to keep up where they are.

(05-02-2014 09:42 AM)10thMountain Wrote:  

(05-01-2014 11:10 PM)CougarRed Wrote:  You're right. My bad. I corrected my post.

Unlike you, who fail to acknowledge error after error, much less correct them.

Where is the error in pointing out that your average attendance is 30K and will most likely drop below that when you reach 14 thanks to the two small privates you are taking on? Do you dispute that?

14?

(05-02-2014 11:55 AM)S11 Wrote:  

(05-02-2014 11:32 AM)NBPirate Wrote:  

(05-02-2014 10:21 AM)S11 Wrote:  

(05-02-2014 10:16 AM)NBPirate Wrote:  

(05-02-2014 10:12 AM)S11 Wrote:  The AAC has a few schools like ECU, UCF, USF, and UConn that reliably can put up averages of greater than 35k so far. However that doesn't mean the league's public schools as a whole are the same as the "rank & file" P5 league teams.

The average for the public schools in the AAC that will be there in 2014 is 34,292.


"Rank and file" P5 averages:

Big 12 other than UT or OU: 50,667
Pac 12 other than USC, Oregon, Washington, UCLA: 45,751
ACC other than Clemson, FSU, VT: 43,960
B1G "rank and file" (Illini, Iowa, NW, Maryland, Minnesota, Purdue, Rutgers): 47,470
SEC Bottom 6: 56,911


Even if you took 4k in average attendance away from the lowest P5 performer (ACC) to estimate the effect of having national powers come to your stadium it would still be a 5k advantage for the ACC over the public schools of the AAC.

No disrespect intended but both attendance and budgets bear out the disparity in support. All of the AAC budgets except for UConn and SMU would struggle to equal the low end of the P5 budgets even if you added 20mm to the total to estimate larger tv payouts and league distributions.

But ECU, UCF, and USF have all averaged at least 45k for a season. Thats a quarter of the league in P5 standards.

You are probably responding to lazy phrasing on my part. Does the bolded rewrite above work better?

How are they not though? Those schools (ECU, UCF, and USF) have consistently averaged better than the bottom rung of the P5 on a 5 year basis.

1- I referred to the AAC's public schools as an aggregate. So while ECU and UCF spike the average that figure also includes Temple, UC, UH, and Memphis which collectively average 28k and drag the league average down.

Memphis is one decent football season away from averaging 40,000 fans per game in the AAC. If Memphis has a really good football season then they are going to lead the AAC in attendance, which will boost the whole league's numbers. ECU and Memphis could literally both average 50,000 fans per game this year if they have good seasons.

(05-02-2014 12:52 PM)HuskyU Wrote:  

(05-02-2014 11:55 AM)S11 Wrote:  

(05-02-2014 11:32 AM)NBPirate Wrote:  

(05-02-2014 10:21 AM)S11 Wrote:  

(05-02-2014 10:16 AM)NBPirate Wrote:  But ECU, UCF, and USF have all averaged at least 45k for a season. Thats a quarter of the league in P5 standards.

You are probably responding to lazy phrasing on my part. Does the bolded rewrite above work better?

How are they not though? Those schools (ECU, UCF, and USF) have consistently averaged better than the bottom rung of the P5 on a 5 year basis.

1- I referred to the AAC's public schools as an aggregate. So while ECU and UCF spike the average that figure also includes Temple, UC, UH, and Memphis which collectively average 28k and drag the league average down.

2- Define bottom rung? Most of the P5 teams average in the 45-55k range. The bottom 25 averaged 42k. The 3 schools you cherry picked averaged around that 42k over the past 5 years. Nobody is arguing bad attendance for ECU, but for the league as a whole every AAC public not named ECU, UConn, USF, or UCF averages under the average of the bottom 10 of P5 membership over the past 5 years.

3- Budget is another differentiator.

Take out the reported league distributions and the average AAC budget is 36.9 million.

The bottom 25 of the power 5?

43 million.

Without UConn and SMU the AAC average plummets to 33.8k.

Once again its not any disrespect to the schools but the level of support is significantly higher in the P5 leagues across each metric. There are exceptions (ECU's attendance, UConn's budget) but for the most part the "rank and file" P5 outpaces the AAC.

It's a bit of a "chicken or the egg" argument. When comparing P5 to G5 attendance/budgets, you have to take into account the respective conferences that those schools play in. Part of the great attendance numbers for the P5 is that they play big name competition throughout the football season. Likewise, most have higher athletic budgets due to generating higher revenue from being a part of the in crowd.

The question is how much of an affect does conference affiliation have on attendance/budget? I think it has a pretty large one. There are some P5 schools that would still have great numbers, but IMO a good amount of those P5s would see a drop-off if they got relegated down to the G5.

100% agreed ^^^

Of course it matters who you play, who is in your conference and who or what type of exposure you are given... I can name a large number of schools in the so called p5 that if relegated down will have a huge negative impact $$$ imidietly.

(05-02-2014 04:46 PM)PirateMarv Wrote:  

(05-02-2014 11:55 AM)S11 Wrote:  

(05-02-2014 11:32 AM)NBPirate Wrote:  

(05-02-2014 10:21 AM)S11 Wrote:  

(05-02-2014 10:16 AM)NBPirate Wrote:  But ECU, UCF, and USF have all averaged at least 45k for a season. Thats a quarter of the league in P5 standards.

You are probably responding to lazy phrasing on my part. Does the bolded rewrite above work better?

How are they not though? Those schools (ECU, UCF, and USF) have consistently averaged better than the bottom rung of the P5 on a 5 year basis.

1- I referred to the AAC's public schools as an aggregate. So while ECU and UCF spike the average that figure also includes Temple, UC, UH, and Memphis which collectively average 28k and drag the league average down.

Memphis is one decent football season away from averaging 40,000 fans per game in the AAC. If Memphis has a really good football season then they are going to lead the AAC in attendance, which will boost the whole league's numbers. ECU and Memphis could literally both average 50,000 fans per game this year if they have good seasons.

Not everyone is going to be up at the same time. Memphis hasn't averaged 50k in all the years I have data for (since 98) and the closest they came was ONE year where they topped 40k (2004 with 41,175) and the year before and after that (38.6k, 39.9k) where they came close. Every other year since 1998 has averaged 26k.

I'll grant ECU could get 50k (they did it in 2011, came close in 2012 and 2010) but I really don't think anyone other than ECU or the florida twins could do it right now.

Houston's new football stadium holds 40k plus change, so even if they wanted to, can't... With so many pro teams in Houston, I think UH is fine with a 40k - 50k football stadium.

Unlike dry-out pewee towns were they hava nothing else to occupy themselves on, desperately need as much $$$ flow as possible.... Good for them (smaller towns).

(05-02-2014 05:12 PM)BigHouston Wrote:  Houston's new football stadium holds 40k plus change, so even if they wanted to, can't... With so many pro teams in Houston, I think UH is fine with a 40k - 50k football stadium.

Unlike dry-out pewee towns were they hava nothing else to occupy themselves on, desperately need as much $$$ flow as possible.... Good for them (smaller towns).

Hey, whatever excuse makes you feel better about sitting in the middle of 6 million people and only averaging 30K attendance.

S11, I have to disagree with the traveling fans example. Sure, Washington State works, but that's on one end of the spectrum. What about NC State? Hosted Clemson (4.5 hours away but a large fan base that live closer to Raleigh), UNC- only a few minutes away, ECU- 90 minutes away (brought 10k fans). Clemson hosted 6 teams who were less than six hours away (many much closer). Auburn hosted four SEC opponents all relatively close. I'm sure there are a lot of other good examples. Some schools are outliers but many others get a solid amount of traveling fans. On the flip side, MAC schools are relatively close and we all know their attendance problems. It's really more about playing at the highest level.

Attendance figures are so bogus all of this discussion is really pretty meaningless.

(05-02-2014 05:18 PM)10thMountain Wrote:  

(05-02-2014 05:12 PM)BigHouston Wrote:  Houston's new football stadium holds 40k plus change, so even if they wanted to, can't... With so many pro teams in Houston, I think UH is fine with a 40k - 50k football stadium.

Unlike dry-out pewee towns were they hava nothing else to occupy themselves on, desperately need as much $$$ flow as possible.... Good for them (smaller towns).

Hey, whatever excuse makes you feel better about sitting in the middle of 6 million people and only averaging 30K attendance.

Hey - It feels good... Thanks

(05-02-2014 05:19 PM)ncbeta Wrote:  S11, I have to disagree with the traveling fans example. Sure, Washington State works, but that's on one end of the spectrum. What about NC State? Hosted Clemson (4.5 hours away but a large fan base that live closer to Raleigh), UNC- only a few minutes away, ECU- 90 minutes away (brought 10k fans). Clemson hosted 6 teams who were less than six hours away (many much closer). Auburn hosted four SEC opponents all relatively close. I'm sure there are a lot of other good examples. Some schools are outliers but many others get a solid amount of traveling fans. On the flip side, MAC schools are relatively close and we all know their attendance problems. It's really more about playing at the highest level.

Sure some teams get some decent number of traveling fans to pad the numbers but the way the schedule rotations tend to work is that for the most part the B12, P12, and ACC teams are lucky to get two of those programs in a given year. Even if each brought a very generous 12k that only amounts to 4k added to the attendance.

Do some schools benefit more than others with geography? Sure. However even your NC State example doesn't show NC State depending on regional foes. They averaged 57.5k vs UNC and Clemson and against distant Syracuse???? 56.6k. Two strong traveling league foes, two not so good.

Their attendance trending down towards the end of the year also proves my point: It is more about the home team's success and relevance than who they play. Becoming relevant is tougher in G5, but the rest IMO is about the program itself.

As for clemson...

Georgia is a non-con. I am more worried about league games, the games teams can't schedule themselves.

SC State is another noncon but a HUGE technicality. Smaller FCS program that is close but not likely to travel en masse.

Same with the Citadel.

Out of their league games (the ones that really matter to this discussion) they had 4 home games.

Wake and BC aren't big travelers. FSU and GT probably were. Right at the two league games I opined about above.

The SEC teams tend to travel better than the others and to an extent a lot of the B1G does as well. Your point is more valid with those leagues.


If a team is successful and relevant people show up regardless of whether they play UNLV or Notre Dame. If the team isn't, they don't. Trust me, I pull for a school that lived both sides of it and follow a league that added a team who lived both sides of it outside the AQ leagues.

SMU's attendance hasn't really changed much over the past few years despite playing more P5 teams. Look at 2012, they had A&M, TCU, and Houston all come to SMU- 21.9k.

2011 when they played NO strong traveling teams at home? 20.8k.

It matters more about the program than it does about the opponent.

Baylor 2005: UT, Nebraska, OSU, Tech, great schedule at home but a bad team & only 5 home games to amplify demand- 38k

Baylor 2013's weaker opponent home games but a very good team that wasn't BCS talking yet (Wofford, Buffalo, ULM, WVU, ISU)- 43,875 with all but around 500 of that average BU fans.

TCU 98 & 99 prior to their first breakthrough year: 26.7k
TCU from 2009 to 2010: 40,327


Too often fans of g5 schools assume that the schedule is a instant fix.

(05-02-2014 06:23 PM)S11 Wrote:  

(05-02-2014 05:19 PM)ncbeta Wrote:  S11, I have to disagree with the traveling fans example. Sure, Washington State works, but that's on one end of the spectrum. What about NC State? Hosted Clemson (4.5 hours away but a large fan base that live closer to Raleigh), UNC- only a few minutes away, ECU- 90 minutes away (brought 10k fans). Clemson hosted 6 teams who were less than six hours away (many much closer). Auburn hosted four SEC opponents all relatively close. I'm sure there are a lot of other good examples. Some schools are outliers but many others get a solid amount of traveling fans. On the flip side, MAC schools are relatively close and we all know their attendance problems. It's really more about playing at the highest level.

Sure some teams get some decent number of traveling fans to pad the numbers but the way the schedule rotations tend to work is that for the most part the B12, P12, and ACC teams are lucky to get two of those programs in a given year. Even if each brought a very generous 12k that only amounts to 4k added to the attendance.

Do some schools benefit more than others with geography? Sure. However even your NC State example doesn't show NC State depending on regional foes. They averaged 57.5k vs UNC and Clemson and against distant Syracuse???? 56.6k. Two strong traveling league foes, two not so good.

Their attendance trending down towards the end of the year also proves my point: It is more about the home team's success and relevance than who they play. Becoming relevant is tougher in G5, but the rest IMO is about the program itself.

As for clemson...

Georgia is a non-con. I am more worried about league games, the games teams can't schedule themselves.

SC State is another noncon but a HUGE technicality. Smaller FCS program that is close but not likely to travel en masse.

Same with the Citadel.

Out of their league games (the ones that really matter to this discussion) they had 4 home games.

Wake and BC aren't big travelers. FSU and GT probably were. Right at the two league games I opined about above.

The SEC teams tend to travel better than the others and to an extent a lot of the B1G does as well. Your point is more valid with those leagues.


If a team is successful and relevant people show up regardless of whether they play UNLV or Notre Dame. If the team isn't, they don't. Trust me, I pull for a school that lived both sides of it and follow a league that added a team who lived both sides of it outside the AQ leagues.

SMU's attendance hasn't really changed much over the past few years despite playing more P5 teams. Look at 2012, they had A&M, TCU, and Houston all come to SMU- 21.9k.

2011 when they played NO strong traveling teams at home? 20.8k.

It matters more about the program than it does about the opponent.

Baylor 2005: UT, Nebraska, OSU, Tech, great schedule at home but a bad team & only 5 home games to amplify demand- 38k

Baylor 2013's weaker opponent home games but a very good team that wasn't BCS talking yet (Wofford, Buffalo, ULM, WVU, ISU)- 43,875 with all but around 500 of that average BU fans.

TCU 98 & 99 prior to their first breakthrough year: 26.7k
TCU from 2009 to 2010: 40,327


Too often fans of g5 schools assume that the schedule is a instant fix.

You make several good points S11... But opponents are very important... Networks pay $$$ through the roof to show them.

(05-02-2014 05:12 PM)BigHouston Wrote:  Houston's new football stadium holds 40k plus change, so even if they wanted to, can't... With so many pro teams in Houston, I think UH is fine with a 40k - 50k football stadium.

Unlike dry-out pewee towns were they hava nothing else to occupy themselves on, desperately need as much $$$ flow as possible.... Good for them (smaller towns).

Calling the Astros and Texans pro teams might be being a little too generous...

...and I'm not even going to bring up the Rockets recent 6 game exit from the playoffs or the Dynamo's losing record. (OK, OK, I just did)