Posted on 10/07/2017 9:58:39 PM PDT by 11th_VA
JANUARY 4, 2017 —Fans in the stands at the Allstate Sugar Bowl in New Orleans Jan. 2 might have wondered where everybody went.
The announced crowd of 54,077 fell far short of the seating capacity of the cavernous Mercedes-Benz Superdome, which holds more than 76,000. Vast swaths of seats sat empty. The attendance figure was the lowest for the Sugar Bowl since 1939.
But it was hardly alone. The Camping World Independence Bowl, held each year in Shreveport, La., brought just under 29,000 fans through its turnstiles, its worst attendance since 1988. The Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic in Arlington, Texas, drew a respectable 59,615, but that was the lowest number since 1998. The TaxSlayer Bowl in Jacksonville, Fla., counted 43,102 occupied seats, the fewest for that event since 1958.
And it wasn’t just bowl games. For the sixth consecutive season attendance at regular season major college football games dropped as well, down about 7 percent since its peak in 2008, according to an analysis by CBS Sports.
Declining interest in college football would come as a big surprise to fans of the University of Alabama and Clemson University, whose teams will clash in a sold-out, nationally televised championship game Jan. 9. But the national championship playoffs themselves, which involve only three of the more than 40 bowl games played from mid-December into January (two semifinal games and a championship game), may be part of the problem: They turn the other bowl games into essentially meaningless exhibitions, except to their most ardent fans.
Many traditional football powerhouse schools have seen no decline in attendance. But other teams in major conferences have. Attendance at University of Missouri games was down 20 percent compared with 2015, for example; at Minnesota, it was down 16 percent; and at Kentucky and Stanford 12 percent...
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
This recent Memphis and Nashville vacationer asks, even the Liberty and Music City Bowls?
dumb article....go back decades and you’ll see many of the minor bowl games with stadiums more than half empty...problem is the post season schedule is saturated with too many bowl games...
Big money ruined college football. NCAAF started circling the bowl when it became a cash cow.
Just checked. Looks like TV ratings are doing well so far this season. Going to the games may just be too expensive/too big a PITA. As long as ratings and ad rates are good, I doubt the number of butts in the seats won’t be a major concern.
4 later
Can’t judge college football by bowl attendence. College fans don’t travel well to bowl games that are far from home. I was at the 1985 Orange Bowl between Washington & Oklahoma and the crowd was on 57,000+/-.
thats not entirely true- there are a lot of schools (Texas, Wisconsin, Bama, Nebraska, Penn St and more) that always travel in big numbers...
it was formerly known as the Gator Bowl...
Football games with thin crowds will be televised with close tight shots to make it appear stands are full and will hold shots to just the playing field where stands are not shown.
There are a lot of bowl games these days not a fair barometer when I was young there was sugar cotton orange rose liberty and gator
Then fiesta came and the floodgates opened
College is all we watch now
Geaux and Tide
I was in Gainesville yesterday
On way back to Nash now
It was so hot
93 temp and humidity
It ain’t called the swamp for nothing
Row one right behind tigers def line bench
I’ve never bought row one seats and The Swamp is perfect for that
The bench is right there like 5 feet in front of you
Just enough room for Coach O’s pretty Wife and Allie LaForce of CBS to walk back and forth
Had three high school football player boys with me
It was fun but I was literally soaked with sweat
too many bowl games. Is there 30 now? Half of division 1 goes to a bowl game.
I think the Tom Petty tribute would be the only aspect that would have held my attention.
I could not care any less if Team X or Team Y’s hired gangs of DNA-advantaged yutes can run faster or jump higher.
I’d rather watch grass grow.
This article is from JANUARY 2017....long before the recent NFL thug’s disrespecting our flag/anthem.
Are there any recent college football game attendance records to update this ‘news’?
Here’s how I would do it: The top eight ranked teams are in the playoffs. This is seven games, or Bowls, including the championship game. All the rest stay home and watch and think about getting better next year.
But it’ll never happen, Bowls = big cashola.
For me, it was a sad day when the Rose Bowl, which started the whole bowl traditon, became merely a semifinal playoff.
The Petty tribute was moving actually
I got teary eyed through the sweat
We just spent the week in St. Aug., and heard a lot of good Tom Petty stories, like he had a beach house on Anastasia Island, and liked to arrive by helo landing on the beach. Quite a character. Damn the Torpedoes.
I agree with you!
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