2009 Attendcnce

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Go Gophers Rah

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The NCAA just released their 2009 Attendance figures:
http://web1.ncaa.org/web_files/stats/football_records/Attendance/2009.pdf

In the past, this ranked all 120 FBS teams, this year they only rank the top 30. I don't have the time or inclination to rank theses. Even so, there are a few things to point out:

2009 Big Ten Avg Home Attendence and rank (and 2008 avg home attendence)
1. Michigan 108,933 (108,571)
2. Penn St. 107,008 (108,254)
3. Ohio St. 105,261 (104,976)
15. Wisconsin 80,109 (81,088) -1%
19. Michigan St. 74,741 (74,858)
21. Iowa 70,214 (70,169)
29. Illinois 59,545 (61,707) -3.5%
NR. Minnesota 50,805 (49,958) +2%
NR. Purdue 50,547 (56,702) -11%
NR. Indiana 41,833 (31,782) +31%
NR. Northwestern 24,190 (28,590) -15%

Also, here are the teams we leap-frogged showing 2009 (and 2008) attendance:
Purdue 50,547 (56,702)
Virginia 47,946 (53,815)
Texas Tech 50,249 (53,625)
Kansas 50,581 (50,907)
Colorado 50,088 (49,476)

We were ranked 45th overall in 2008 - since we jumped 5 teams (and I can't find any teams that jumped us), I would guess that would put us at #40.

Here are some of my thoughts/observations:
  • obviously the 50,805 is "sold" tickets rather than butts in seats, but I think that's the way everyone does it.
  • if we can sustain 50,000+ for 5 years, I hope they add in seats in chunks of about 3-5,000 seats.
  • In the Big Ten stadia that don't sell out (ie Indiana and Northwestern and - for 2009 anyway - Purdue, I would guess that they fluctuate widely based on vistitor fans; ie Ohio State brought 20,000 fans to IU in 2009, but no team with a large contingency came in 2008).
  • I know we didn't travel very well to the Insight Bowl, but the ISU fans have no room to talk with their 46,242 average attendance.
  • I'm surprised that Northwestern saw such a large decline given that this was a very good season for them.

Other thoughts/observations?
 

Northwestern and Indiana

NR. Indiana 41,833 (31,782) +31%
NR. Northwestern 24,190 (28,590) -15%

What's up with that? Indiana, while playing some entertaining football, still didn't win a lot of football games. That's a trend for several years now, yet they had a 31% increase. Why?

Northwestern is below 25k in average fans? They are entertaining and had some big wins this year. I really like what Fitzgerald has done so far at Northwestern. If they don't appreciate him, and there were an opening here at some point, bring him on!
 

Perhaps we overrate the actual on-field product as attendance goes? Sometimes a fan base just sucks (in terms of going to games I mean) no matter how good the team is.

I think IU has done some things to make games more fan festive, and apparently it has paid off. NU meanwhile, has done little that I'm aware of besides put a good product on the field. Apparently that's not enough. I think Northwestern just shows that sometimes, "just win" isn't the end all be all answer to attendance problems.
 

CWCWCW said:
NR. Indiana 41,833 (31,782) +31%
NR. Northwestern 24,190 (28,590) -15%

What's up with that? Indiana, while playing some entertaining football, still didn't win a lot of football games. That's a trend for several years now, yet they had a 31% increase. Why?

Northwestern is below 25k in average fans? They are entertaining and had some big wins this year. I really like what Fitzgerald has done so far at Northwestern. If they don't appreciate him, and there were an opening here at some point, bring him on!
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure Indiana added on to their stadium this year.

http://iuhoosiers.cstv.com/facilities/ind-facilities-memorial.html

then scroll down to "Fall 2009"
 

CWCWCW said:
NR. Indiana 41,833 (31,782) +31%
NR. Northwestern 24,190 (28,590) -15%

What's up with that? Indiana, while playing some entertaining football, still didn't win a lot of football games. That's a trend for several years now, yet they had a 31% increase. Why?
Click to expand...

Part of the jump for Indiana could be that they opened the new addition to the stadium and people wanted to come see it. Also, the 2 games most likely to sell out thanks to visiting fans (Purdue/OSU) were both @ IU this year. That's my best guess speculations so take them for what their worth (pretty much nothing). ;)
 


Monty519 said:
Perhaps we overrate the actual on-field product as attendance goes? Sometimes a fan base just sucks (in terms of going to games I mean) no matter how good the team is.
Click to expand...

That's funny, I was going to make the same point but with the inverse example of Michigan. They have had a couple of terrible years and their attendance hasn't dropped off. I guess they'd have to continue the trend for 40 years to make an apples to apples comparison, but there's no way we'd still sell out at the end of a 3-9 season in our stadium, let alone the big house.
 

GoAUpher said:
Part of the jump for Indiana could be that they opened the new addition to the stadium and people wanted to come see it. Also, the 2 games most likely to sell out thanks to visiting fans (Purdue/OSU) were both @ IU this year. That's my best guess speculations so take them for what their worth (pretty much nothing). ;)
Click to expand...

Maybe they started counting the fans that showed up for tailgating and didn't go to the game.:D
 


How about those Johnnies? Leading the pack again!

They know how to put together a great game day experience!
 




The Omaha World-Herald did a study and conluded that in the Big 12 the schools with big stadiums were viable financially, but those with 50,000 or less were not. One of the reasons I hoped our new one would be at least 60,000.
 

Great Plains Gopher said:
The Omaha World-Herald did a study and conluded that in the Big 12 the schools with big stadiums were viable financially, but those with 50,000 or less were not. One of the reasons I hoped our new one would be at least 60,000.
Click to expand...

That sounds like confusion between cause and effect.
 




Great Plains Gopher said:
The Omaha World-Herald did a study and conluded that in the Big 12 the schools with big stadiums were viable financially, but those with 50,000 or less were not. One of the reasons I hoped our new one would be at least 60,000.
Click to expand...

But the Big XII has a huge fiscal disparity in the distribution of TV revenues.

It is easier in the Big Ten to be financially viable with a 50,000 seat stadium than the Big XII due to every school getting equal TV & Bowl revenue.

The study was only comparing Big XII teams. So we have to take our additional TV revenue into the equation by adding "seats" based on extra revenue. Texas, despite getting the lion's share of TV revenue in the Big XII, still gets about $8,000,000 less than the U. Convert that at $35 per ticket, and our stadium is the equivalent (Big XII revenue-wise) of a 82,000 seat stadium.
 





Go Gophers Rah said:
The NCAA just released their 2009 Attendance figures:
http://web1.ncaa.org/web_files/stats/football_records/Attendance/2009.pdf

In the past, this ranked all 120 FBS teams, this year they only rank the top 30. I don't have the time or inclination to rank theses. Even so, there are a few things to point out:

2009 Big Ten Avg Home Attendence and rank (and 2008 avg home attendence)
1. Michigan 108,933 (108,571)
2. Penn St. 107,008 (108,254)
3. Ohio St. 105,261 (104,976)
15. Wisconsin 80,109 (81,088) -1%
19. Michigan St. 74,741 (74,858)
21. Iowa 70,214 (70,169)
29. Illinois 59,545 (61,707) -3.5%
NR. Minnesota 50,805 (49,958) +2%
NR. Purdue 50,547 (56,702) -11%
NR. Indiana 41,833 (31,782) +31%
NR. Northwestern 24,190 (28,590) -15%

Also, here are the teams we leap-frogged showing 2009 (and 2008) attendance:
Purdue 50,547 (56,702)
Virginia 47,946 (53,815)
Texas Tech 50,249 (53,625)
Kansas 50,581 (50,907)
Colorado 50,088 (49,476)

We were ranked 45th overall in 2008 - since we jumped 5 teams (and I can't find any teams that jumped us), I would guess that would put us at #40.

Here are some of my thoughts/observations:
  • obviously the 50,805 is "sold" tickets rather than butts in seats, but I think that's the way everyone does it.
  • if we can sustain 50,000+ for 5 years, I hope they add in seats in chunks of about 3-5,000 seats.
  • In the Big Ten stadia that don't sell out (ie Indiana and Northwestern and - for 2009 anyway - Purdue, I would guess that they fluctuate widely based on vistitor fans; ie Ohio State brought 20,000 fans to IU in 2009, but no team with a large contingency came in 2008).
  • I know we didn't travel very well to the Insight Bowl, but the ISU fans have no room to talk with their 46,242 average attendance.
  • I'm surprised that Northwestern saw such a large decline given that this was a very good season for them.

Other thoughts/observations?
Click to expand...

Last year should be proof positive that we are much more than 5 years out from any expansion. Maybe we had "sell outs" but there were tickets to be had and lots of empty seats. Alarming for a team that had so much buzz and excitement preseason for the product and building.
 

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