College football has a problem that’s likely to be on full display as a new season kicks off this Labor Day weekend—people actually attending games. Average announced attendance in football’s top division dropped for the fourth consecutive year last year, declining 7.6% in four years.
But The Wall Street Journal reports schools’ internal records show that the sport’s attendance woes go far beyond that.
The average count of tickets scanned at home games—the number of fans who actually show up—is about 71% of the attendance you see in a box score, according to data from the 2017 season collected by the newspaper.
Even teams in the nation’s five richest conferences, including the attendance-leading SEC, routinely record thousands fewer people passing through stadium gates than they report publicly. The no-shows reflect the challenge of filling large venues when nearly every game is on TV, and they threaten a key revenue source for college athletic departments.
Most schools scan and keep count of tickets used at football games. The requested access to those counts under public records law, and most public schools supplied them. Private schools aren’t subject to public records law.
Even the mighty SEC is facing an issue, with more than 1 million fewer fans across the league showing up to games last season than schools collectively announced.
Attendance is more than a vanity issue. The NCAA requires schools to maintain a 15,000 “actual or paid” home attendance on a rolling two-year average to stay in football’s top division.
Many schools take a generous approach in compiling announced attendance, by including ushers, security guards and even the guy at the concession stand who sells you a Coke.
The NCAA accepts the announced attendance numbers schools submit “at face value,” NCAA spokesman Christopher Radford says.
In a bid to get more fans in Tiger Stadium, LSU—which has seen average game attendance fall from 102,004 in 2015 to 98,308 last season—has begun expanding areas in which fans can drink alcohol and is testing out a new flexible season ticket option.
LSU was not among the 100 schools that provided data to The Wall Street Journal. Read the full story.
