Dennis Dodd: In era of technological, financial change, has college football peaked?
Interesting article and topic. Also, it begins with Mark Hollis (MSU AD) talking about the MSU v. Iowa game that was empthy last year. We tend to poke fun at that game - so I found his take noteworthy.
Goes into average attendance in CFB and whether it's becoming more like the NFL (in that fans would rather watch on TV).
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OPINION: My take - no, the recent decline is more about competitive advantage/disadvantage and scheduling than it is anything else.
I've worked in college athletics for 8 years now...I certainly don't see a decline in interest. You're always going to have new students who want their 4 years to tailgate, have fun, go to games. You're always going to have new season-ticket holders that have been waiting forever to finally get their seats.
The problem is the current state of CFB. The scheduling is bad and the BCS/realignment situation is killing tradtion and competitive balance. If you're in the Big 5 conferences, you don't have to schedule ANYONE non-conference. Win the SEC, B1G, ACC, Pac-12 or Big XII and you've got a good shot to be in the National Championship game.
Games have also become more predictable, less upsets due to this poor balance.
Toss in the access and TV experience and its no wonder why people stay home. HDTV and 50" LEDs have a huge affect on whether someone goes to the game or not.
Also, don't discount the recession...people just don't have as much disposable income anymore. Ticket prices aren't going down with the economy, they're going up to pay for new stadiums with new seating, press boxes, aminities. Some people just can't afford to go to a game like they used to.
Last thought: I bet if you did an MGoPoll on if you'd rather go to Michigan vs. Minnesota/Indiana/etc. in the cold (20-40 degrees) or sit at home and watch the game on ESPN, on a 50" LED HDTV...you'd get WAY more people that took the TV now than 10 years ago when the TV option was a standard def 32" tube TV.
With that said, I think after the CFB landscpe settles...attendance will go back up. Maybe that'll be a new 80 team league with 8 divisions and a playoff. I don't know. But once they finally figure it out, I think CFB will be fine.
January 22nd, 2013 at 2:19 PM ^
College football has pissed away its niche as amateur football premised on tradition, geography, recognizable annual rivalries, and student players. It's just another form of grab-all-you-can entertainment now (see, e.g, the Teo debacle) and can't really compete all that well against pro football, TV, and all the rest.
It's becoming more like pro football every year (arena RAWK, money grubbing, luxury suites, conference changes, players continually in trouble with the law, offenses at almost every school just like the pros, etc.) Trying to compete as pro football with worse players isn't really a great recipe for success. Add to that the fact that it's almost entirely an ESPN-produced form of entertainment, with ESPN being an aesthetic disaster and, no -- the future isn't that bright.
January 22nd, 2013 at 3:07 PM ^
In 2007, the Tigers had an attendance of just over three million. In 2008, it was 3.2 million. This past year, just over three million.
So, the line about having done it "five or six times" is misleading. I glanced at the schedule this year and the low mark for attendance was about 36,000.
On July 20, they list the attendance at more than 44,000.
January 23rd, 2013 at 8:04 AM ^
OK, I stand corrected about that. Still, even if they've "only" done it three times, that's three times out of 13 years in a stadium that is not that large (and I predict that it will happen again in 2013). In contrast, for 88 seasons the Tigers played in a 50,000+ seat stadium and never drew 3 million.
January 22nd, 2013 at 3:19 PM ^
What's that economic term to describe it? The point of diminshing marginal returns, or something like that. College football has been fully exploited and overexposed.
January 22nd, 2013 at 3:35 PM ^
January 22nd, 2013 at 3:47 PM ^
I fear that in the future sporting events are going to be on a PPV basis or highly expensive cable packages. Best way to get people out of their homes and into the stadium is to make it more expensive to stay in the house.
It'll have its trade-offs like all things. You'll get the diehards throwing their money at it like crazy, but the decreased visibility kills off any chances of cultivating and growing a casual/uninformed fanbase.
January 22nd, 2013 at 4:02 PM ^
I hope it's declining. Sports in general are too big in this country.
January 22nd, 2013 at 4:26 PM ^
After our next loss. ;-)
January 22nd, 2013 at 6:06 PM ^
And they aren't big in other countries?
Ever been to a pro soccer match in Europe or Latin America?
January 22nd, 2013 at 4:35 PM ^
January 23rd, 2013 at 8:50 AM ^
My concern is that Delaney and other conference bigs seem to have forgotten the lessons the housing crash taught, among which were “yes, what goes up and goes up so spectacularly must eventually come down.” Yet Delaney and Slive expand into markets of questionable long-term television viewership, expand facilities to accommodate more (especially more well-heeled) fans, and pay coaches Fortune 500 CEO-level salaries in the belief that the product and the market for it have no downside. They and the television networks that help fuel such expansion seem to feel that the public will only clamor for more and more college football, and demand will only rise.
Wall Street whizzes hubristically bought worthless mortgages because they could sell them to others who clamored for more and more mortgage-backed securities, another product that supposedly had no downside. One would hope that Delaney and his confrères recognize that nothing is “too hot not to cool down.”
January 23rd, 2013 at 9:12 AM ^
I've wondered when college football might hit a tipping point and the interest and money starts to decline. It doesn't seem sustainable for the money to keep going up, and no matter how much schools pay coaches, not all the teams will have winning records and BCS bowl games. There will be losers, and already most schools are paying out more than they are bringing in for athletics,