(04-30-2021 07:23 AM)TexanMark Wrote: Thought I'd start a new thread on Football and basketball attendance.
I envision pretty much anything goes here. A few thoughts rumbling through my brain.
I think attendance at some traditional power schools will be at 2019 levels but many schools will see 5-25% drops this year with the Covid hangover. I mean if we still have vaccinated leaders and media wearing double masks there has to be reluctance on some to go back. Some states are still holding on pretty tight with capacity controls (looking at you Cuomo) and some STHers are saying why do I need to re-up my season tickets?
Do you agree? Where do you think your school is on this? Is it affecting you?
Mark for the 4 years prior to COVID attendance had been trending down. Over that span of time the SEC (leader among the P5) dropped from an average over 77,000 per game to an average over 72,000 per game. The Big 10 (#2 among P5) dropped from 67,000 average per game to 64,000 average per game. All P5 conferences suffered the decline with the Big 10's 3,000 loss being the smallest percentage wise.
I think most of the decline corresponded with a ballooning in season ticket prices though the contribution levels for the right to buy tickets stayed about the same, and because of the advent of HD Television which makes staying at home much more enjoyable, especially for older fans for which the heat can be an issue and for fans with small children for which the expense was a bit much to begin with.
No doubt COVID will accelerate this trend as people's habits have now been broken and many will have discovered the economic advantages of having friends over to watch the game on their new 75 inch HD TV.
Game day experiences have been going downhill since the money grubbing for spots to tailgate led to buying leases on a slip in which to hold one, and the atmosphere in all venues became artificially the same with the piped in music and crowd noise. When people buy a tailgating spot they get downright rude to the fans just walking to the game if you enter their space. Such an attitude never existed prior to charging for the space. And inside the stadium the artificial nose simply makes conversation with people you've sat next to for 40 years in our case damned near impossible as you have to cup your hands and yell into their ear to talk.
Fans will still attend but I wouldn't be surprised to see even more empty seats this year even where venues are back to full capacity.
Further troubling some patrons will be the recent spate of political gestures which have turned off part of the clientele base. I don't know what percentage, but it had an impact both on professional sports and I fully expect it to have one for college sports.
NIL will take a small percentage as well as some older people feel that if they are paid they aren't necessarily loyal to the school, as if they were anyway. Some athletes are and some aren't.
I raise these issues to say all that the NCAA, the courts, and politics have done is to toss gasoline on a trend that was already an evident and burning issue.
In fairness to the SEC's numbers a good % of the decline is attributable to two sources. Vanderbilt's lack of facility upgrades since 1981 and their in state rival's dumpster fire of a program where Neyland Stadium has seen way too many vacant seats in a facility that when filled holds a little over 102,000. But nationally the trend is evident no matter if it has been in the SEC or not, and it has.
I'm not sure we will see an attendance figure average in the SEC of 77,000 again in my lifetime if ever. TV money had better increase because gate is going to continue to decline.