CBS Sports: SEC Attendance Issues

Submitted by ChiCityWolverine on

Interesting read on SEC's possible reactions to lagging attendance. For all the hype about the level of football and loyalty of the fans, SEC power brokers are also concerned about losing fans to their TV sets.

Side note: Georgia and Alabama are cited as an example of lagging student attendance. This is not a unique problem.

Student attendance: Student attendance overall has dropped or, if the students do come, they show up late and leave early. Georgia has cut back its student allotment for tickets from 18,000 to 16,000 per game. It has taken those 2,000 tickets and sold them to young alumni who can obtain them without a contribution. "We haven't averaged 16,000 in student attendance in a long time," said Greg McGarity, the athletics director at Georgia. "This was a chance to help our young alumni get started as season ticket holders with a relatively small financial commitment."

A study by the Crimson White, the student newspaper at Alabama, said only 69.4 percent of student tickets were used during the 2012 season. And we're talking about a football program that has won three of the last four BCS national championships.

"I'm very concerned about it," Alabama AD Bill Battle told me when we visited in his office this spring.

Link: http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/story/22311553/attendance-lags-put-sec-on-offense-looking-to-enhance-fan-experience

M-Dog

May 27th, 2013 at 7:31 PM ^

Student tickets are season tickets.  A lot of students buy their "saeson tcikets" so that they will be able to go to the Ohio State game or the Michigan State game.  They don't really care about the rest of the games, so they don't go or they go late and leave early.

I don't think the AD wants to sell individual games to students, but they should at least make it much easier for students to be able to sell the tickets they don't want.  Perhaps a way to selll them on-line on short notice back to the AD who can then resell them on-demand to fans who want to go.  The current system is way too cumbersome for busy (and some lazy) students to deal with.

 

AngryAlum

May 27th, 2013 at 7:50 PM ^

One simple way of fixing the attendance issue, is stop scheduling terrible home games and actually get matchups that people might actually care about.   App St?  Terrible...Cincinatti?  What's the point??  Yea i get it you make some money and pad the record.  But you can't do one and then complain about the lackluster attendance.  Think about it.  If Michigan played App St at a neutral site would people go?  No.. So why do people act surprised that interest is low just because its at home?

AMazinBlue

May 27th, 2013 at 7:52 PM ^

and my dad had seats next to mine since 1956.  My brother gave those up three years ago and we have been talking for over a year about giving up mine and going the StubHub route.  For two grand or more for seats and paying more to park to watch Eastern, Indiana, Illinois etc just so you can be there for OSU, HD and MSU is getting silly.

The average household in Michigan that doesn't have $150k of yearly income can't keep this up.  College football and Michigan included are going to see more people stay at home.  There is no line for my bathroom, or the kitchen and I don't have to pay to park.  My favorite part of the game is when the band and the team come on the field.  That is one of the most exhilarating moments you can experience in sports.

But, to justify the expense when I have a 15 yr old that will need a vehicle in a year, college in three more and my eventual retirement , watching on TV is getting more attractive all the time.

Ball Hawk

May 27th, 2013 at 9:30 PM ^

My good friend at work has season tickets with his dad and brother also. They have had them tickets for 20yrs and finally gave them up last season because it was just too expensive to buy every year. He said that the people around his section gave their seats up also because of cost and these are people he sat with for 20yrs. Im not sure if its the real problem but it doesnt help when, like others have said, you have a nice flat screen tv and having friends and family come over to watch the game. I know I could never afford season tickets as an average joe.

Bando Calrissian

May 27th, 2013 at 9:36 PM ^

I think about the kind of investment my parents made when I was a kid, to be able to take our family to football games in the fall and basketball and hockey games in the winter. Our family's schedule revolved around Michigan athletics, week in and week out, for nine months out of the year. It was affordable, fun, and engaging.

Today, twenty years later, that's an unaffordable proposition for most families. Not only the cost of tickets alone, but what it takes on top of that to get in the front end once you factor in PSD's and mandatory Victors Club donations when you're trying to outpace everyone else to make sure you stay where you are. It's an absurd proposition. 

I know I will never be able to offer my kids the same opportunities my parents did for us when it comes to Michigan sports. That's too bad, but Dave Brandon has his sights set on a certain price point that doesn't appeal to families. We're not only trying to keep up with ourselves, but with a "market" or "platform" or whatever his marketing buzzword is that particular day. 

As a result, I find myself increasingly disinterested and disengaged with where Michigan football is going in general, and where college football is going as a whole. It isn't the same anymore. I don't identify with corporate naming rights and marketing lingo. I identify with Michigan. And the Michigan name is being increasingly buried beneath the layers of this stuff. And that's too bad.

maizenbluenc

May 28th, 2013 at 10:29 AM ^

there probably is a core group of students who do attend every game, mostly on time, becuase they were brought to Michigan games as kids with their family. They already know the game day experience and that is why they go. What's more, they are the ones pulling other "non-initiated' to go as well.

Agree, if it is no longer affordable for a family to attend games routinely - especially the good games - then Michigan is erroding its future fan base.

Jacoby

May 28th, 2013 at 12:11 AM ^

I'm with you on this. I would also add that having weak home schedules adds to my detachment. I love that last year we took on tough teams, but why not have these teams come to the big house? And they thing the season gets more interesting by adding Maryland and Rutgers into the schedule while displacing traditional big ten teams? Not to be all "get off my lawn" but some of these changes are just awful.

BJNavarre

May 27th, 2013 at 10:34 PM ^

I don't think the economy has much to do with it. I think there's 2 major problems:

1) Race to the bottom scheduling. This has been discussed, and I think they're working to correct it.
2) Replay. Nothing is more of a buzz kill than a 5 minute replay after every other big play. It's boring TV and even worse when you're in the stands. Football is not supposed to be an exact science, so ditch replay and just stick to playing football.

Remember, poor student attendance is more of a reflection of the quality of the game over the past 5-10 years and not just its present state. CFB is now paying the price for mistakes made over the past decade and the trend will only eventually reverse if they make positive improvements to make the game more attractive to adolescent spectators.

Tater

May 27th, 2013 at 10:57 PM ^

It's no secret that the internet has decreased the average attention span.  In addition, any of you who may have tried to sit through "classic" movies for Memorial Day may have noticed that the pace of old "action" movies is glacial compared to contemporary ones.

Maybe the younger generation is trying to tell football that the games are too long, especially with all of the TV timeouts.  The bigger problem is that if students don't care about games now, attendance might really start to decline as baby boomers start to die off.

Whatever the case, schools might want to solicit input from students.  The people using current student tickets represent future full price season tickets.

UMxWolverines

May 27th, 2013 at 11:40 PM ^

The prices are rising and people don't make that much more money. Tickets in 2003 were $50 or $55 for the notre dame game. Now I think they're like $85 for the bigger games. Give me a break. People can't afford that and it's showing with people not renewing season tickets. 

Bando Calrissian

May 28th, 2013 at 12:04 AM ^

And if you've been following the strategy closely, non-renewed season tickets mean more seats available for these mini season packages. If Athletics can put two or three different people in the same seats, get them all to donate to the Victors Club for the right to do so, and parlay that into sustained donations from all of them, they end up ahead.

The old days of season tickets being the preferred mode to get people in the seats week after week are over.