(08-28-2018 03:04 PM)Wedge Wrote:  Agree with all of those.

It's the prospect of mediocre week zero ticket sales that is going to cause hesitation among many ADs. The ADs who would be hesitant are not the ADs at Ohio State or Alabama where they're going to be swimming in cash no matter what. It's the ADs at places like Minnesota or Missouri who are going to be asking whether such a move would cost them a few hundred thousand dollars in lost ticket sales every time they play at home in week zero. G5 programs might also resist, because even if the lost ticket sales in dollars would be a lower amount at a G5 school starting from a lower average attendance, it would impact them because the lost revenue is a larger percentage of their budget.

You'd have to convince ADs that such a move would either have no effect on ticket sales or a small-enough effect that the trade off would be worth it to them.

CSU had 31K attendance against Hawaii. That's just 1K less than their 32K average last year. In 2017, CSU's Week 0 game against Oregon St. had 37K attendance (but that was the first game in the new stadium's history).

NMSU and Rice each had 20K attendance - 1-2K MORE than their last year's sub-20K averages.

UMass had an awful turnout - less than 9K. But, the Minutemen's 2017 average was 10.7K, so that's not horrible for them for a Week 0 game against the FCS opponent. Last year, UMass hosted Hawaii in Week 0 and attracted over 12K attendance.

Last year, SJSU had 13.3K attendance for their Week 0 game against USF - just under their 14K average.

BYU had 55K versus an FCS opponent in Week 0, just below its 56K average.

There is limited data, but so far it shows a slight decrease in attendance at worst. But, the opponent could be the more significant variable than the date on the calendar.