Playoff Attendance

[Redbird Ray]

I know there has been discussion on this point before, but could someone tell me why attendance for playoff games is listed so low? I thought I remember a few of you on here saying that schools sometimes purposely list their attendance lower than it actually is, and I was wondering if someone could tell me why they do that?

I'm hoping this is the case, and that more than 5800 people showed in Cdale yesterday and 7200 in Richmond. I thought all of the Appy fans were going to come to Richmond and sell the stadium out? Please tell me that FCS is not this lame.

:(

[Torgo]

I was shocked the attendances were so low for those two games. Absolutely shocked, and slightly disappointed.


Villanova isn't that surprising because of the weather, but damn that was a tiny crowd.

[Golden Eagle]

They have to give a portion of the gate to the NCAA for playoff games. They purposely underreport to make more money.

[siuham]

You people really don't get what it's like to not be a single sport school.

SIU is a basketball school with a now mediocre basketball team. Most students and locals don't give two ****s about the football team.

[caribbeanhen]

it sure looked like more than 7000 at Richmond, that small crowd at Nova had little (reaching) to do with the weather and more to do with just general fan apathy towards football

[DTSpider]

It's full price paid attendance. So - no player comps, students, band, children, etc. I think most places that's 2000 people or more.

[Ronbo]

ATTENDANCE: 22,438 reported.

[Eight Legger]

The weather in Richmond probably kept 3-4k away, I am sad to say. They figured they could just watch it on TV. I think this goes for some UR fans, a lot of ASU fans and the casual walk-up fans we might have gotten on a sunny afternoon who weren't willing to come out when it was snowing and 34. The people who were there made a lot of noise though.

[NovaWildcat]

There was a blizzard in Villanova, Pa. yesterday. To start, it kept a couple-thousand students away. Had to have kept at least a couple-thousand more on the Villanova-side out because it's normally full for home games and was half empty. The UNH group in the middle of the visiting stands also looked half-filled. I was out there and the weather was almost unbearable - high winds, strong snowfall/rain the entire game and very cold.

To say that the reported crowd of 2,600+ had little to do with weather is ridiculous - if you actually believe that you didn't step outside yesterday. Yes, there is apathy towards Villanova football, but there's easily 10,000 at that game if there's no precipitation.

[colorless raider]

There was a blizzard in Villanova, Pa. yesterday. To start, it kept a couple-thousand students away. Had to have kept at least a couple-thousand more on the Villanova-side out because it's normally full for home games and was half empty. The UNH group in the middle of the visiting stands also looked half-filled. I was out there and the weather was almost unbearable - high winds, strong snowfall/rain the entire game and very cold.

To say that the reported crowd of 2,600+ had little to do with weather is ridiculous - if you actually believe that you didn't step outside yesterday. Yes, there is apathy towards Villanova football, but there's easily 10,000 at that game if there's no precipitation.

Colgate beat those numbers in the two blizzard games vs UMASS and Western Illinois in 2003.:)

[Go Lehigh TU owl]

Colgate beat those numbers in the two blizzard games vs UMASS and Western Illinois in 2003.:)

Those in SEPA are a little out of touch with what a blizzard is. Four inches of snow with some cold weather is a blizzard to them. Here is NEPA thats' a nice day for this time of year. The fact is, no one at 'Nova cares about football.

[SeattleGriz]

You people really don't get what it's like to not be a single sport school.

SIU is a basketball school with a now mediocre basketball team. Most students and locals don't give two ****s about the football team.

Wow. Ranked 92nd in attendance at 5892 fans per game is all it takes to make one a basketball school?

Our womens team averages 3826 per game. Your basketball mens team, only averages 2000 more fans than our womens program.

xsmhx

I wouldn't even say you are a basketball school. I would say you are a program that has trouble getting fans to watch anything.

Single sport my azz.

[jlcharles]

it sure looked like more than 7000 at Richmond, that small crowd at Nova had little (reaching) to do with the weather and more to do with just general fan apathy towards football

Just keep on telling yourself that. Post it in a few more threads.

There was no way we were going to sell out, but that crowd was way worse than what we would have gotten with weather like last week. We average 8k and reported attendance was 2661.

[jlcharles]

Wow. Ranked 92nd in attendance at 5892 fans per game is all it takes to make one a basketball school?

Our womens team averages 3826 per game. Your basketball mens team, only averages 2000 more fans than our womens program.

xsmhx

I wouldn't even say you are a basketball school. I would say you are a program that has trouble getting fans to watch anything.

Single sport my azz.

How large is their basketball stadium? How big is the waiting list to get in? You don't have any idea what their situation is and to make blanket statements like that is absurd.

[NovaWildcat]

Is Villanova a basketball school?

Our average home attendance thus far is 6,500 (capacity at The Pavilion). Since it's only 2,500 more than Montana's women's program, I guess we're not a basketball school.

And no one is debating that there's limited interest in Villanova football - however to say the attendance measurement is on-par with better weather is just wrong.

[Shellin]

Reported attendance in Missoula: 22,438

Reported attendance at the other 3 games combined: 15,793.

[bluedog]

FCS Playoffs Attendance:

New Hampshire 7, Villanova 46

ATTENDANCE: 2,661

William & Mary 24, Southern Illinois 3

ATTENDANCE: 5,860

Stephen F. Austin 0, Montana 51

ATTENDANCE: 22,438

Appalachian State 35, Richmond 31

ATTENDANCE: 7,272

SOURCE (http://scores.espn.go.com/ncf/scoreboard)



Southern vs. Texas Southern

Date: Dec 05, 2009 • Site: Houston, TX • Stadium: Delmar • Attendance: 10769

[VUCats02]

You guys can make fun of our fans all you want. The number of people who attend a game, unfortunately for you big schools, does not determine wins and losses :)

By the way, these numbers have to say something about Nova home games in both basketball and football. 31 wins in a row at the Pavilion in basketball, 17 won home games in the last 18 in football.

And Nova has one of the largest student sections in College Basketball during games played at the Wachovia Center. We're very happy being a pretty good FCS football team, and one of the best college basketball teams in the country :)

I'm excited for the William and Mary game this weekend. At least most W&M fans have more to say about the actual football games than complaining about fan attendance...

[ASUG8]

FCS Playoffs Attendance:

New Hampshire 7, Villanova 46

ATTENDANCE: 2,661

William & Mary 24, Southern Illinois 3

ATTENDANCE: 5,860

Stephen F. Austin 0, Montana 51

ATTENDANCE: 22,438

Appalachian State 35, Richmond 31

ATTENDANCE: 7,272

SOURCE (http://scores.espn.go.com/ncf/scoreboard)



Southern vs. Texas Southern

Date: Dec 05, 2009 • Site: Houston, TX • Stadium: Delmar • Attendance: 10769

These figures are something of an embarassment IMO - this is the most exciting time of the season, and with the exception of UM, the fan support simply isn't there. It isn't like everybody's at home watching it on TV. You've got the best teams at our level going after each other on every down, and the stadiums are half full at best. xnonono2x

[NovaHater]

Those in SEPA are a little out of touch with what a blizzard is. Four inches of snow with some cold weather is a blizzard to them. Here is NEPA thats' a nice day for this time of year. The fact is, no one at 'Nova cares about football.

Does that beat down of 38-17 back in Sep still have you hating on the Wildcats ?

xlolxxlolxxlolxxlolxxlolxxlolxxlolxxlolxxlolxxlolx

[bluedog]

Those in SEPA are a little out of touch with what a blizzard is. Four inches of snow with some cold weather is a blizzard to them. Here is NEPA thats' a nice day for this time of year. The fact is, no one at 'Nova cares about football.

That would be a snow storm here in south Louisiana :D

[SeattleGriz]

You people really don't get what it's like to not be a single sport school.

SIU is a basketball school with a now mediocre basketball team. Most students and locals don't give two ****s about the football team.


Wow. Ranked 92nd in attendance at 5892 fans per game is all it takes to make one a basketball school?

Our womens team averages 3826 per game. Your basketball mens team, only averages 2000 more fans than our womens program.

xsmhx

I wouldn't even say you are a basketball school. I would say you are a program that has trouble getting fans to watch anything.

Single sport my azz.

My bad. That is what I get trying to read and then post with two kids asking for breakfast. I thought you were trying to imply that Montana was only a football school, and now that I have reread, sans children, I see you were not saying that. I now see you were saying SIU is a basketball school.

My apologies for the snippy reply.

[SalukiJim]

Wow. Ranked 92nd in attendance at 5892 fans per game is all it takes to make one a basketball school?

Our womens team averages 3826 per game. Your basketball mens team, only averages 2000 more fans than our womens program.

xsmhx

I wouldn't even say you are a basketball school. I would say you are a program that has trouble getting fans to watch anything.

Single sport my azz.

Missoula, MT (according to Wikipedia) metro area = 97,000
Carbondale = 23,000. The largest city in a one-hour drive anywhere. So to get 6 to 8000 to attend a game with that small of a population base does say something. In the Missouri Valley (BB) conference:

Omaha
Wichita
Bloomington, IL
Peoria, IL
Des Moines
Terre Haute

all are quite a bit over 100,000 - or near it. So we've always been at a disadvantage, attendance wise. If you can believe it, back in the 70s the MVC was a division 1 football conference, and we were trying to compete with the 'big boys', when our COUNTY's population is smaller than some stadiums...

[mmiller_34]

Missoula, MT (according to Wikipedia) metro area = 97,000
Carbondale = 23,000. The largest city in a one-hour drive anywhere. So to get 6 to 8000 to attend a game with that small of a population base does say something. In the Missouri Valley (BB) conference:

Omaha
Wichita
Bloomington, IL
Peoria, IL
Des Moines
Terre Haute

all are quite a bit over 100,000 - or near it. So we've always been at a disadvantage, attendance wise. If you can believe it, back in the 70s the MVC was a division 1 football conference, and we were trying to compete with the 'big boys', when our COUNTY's population is smaller than some stadiums...


Brookings is 18,000.. We didn't have a game under 10,000 this year and averaged 13,000+ of course, Sioux Falls is 50 minutes away.

[siuham]

My bad. That is what I get trying to read and then post with two kids asking for breakfast. I thought you were trying to imply that Montana was only a football school, and now that I have reread, sans children, I see you were not saying that. I now see you were saying SIU is a basketball school.

My apologies for the snippy reply.

I wasn't even talking about basketball's attendance numbers. SIU is (was) known as a basketball school after a good number years straight in the NCAA tourny, with two Sweet 16 apperances.

The team has been mediocre for the past two years, and are going to have another mediocre/bad year again, so the attendance number here is going to drop, but that doesn't do anything to change how few (relatively speaking) people know about the football program.

[MaxASU'81]

These figures are something of an embarassment IMO - this is the most exciting time of the season, and with the exception of UM, the fan support simply isn't there. It isn't like everybody's at home watching it on TV. You've got the best teams at our level going after each other on every down, and the stadiums are half full at best. xnonono2x

IMO...the richmond attendance was way under-reported....jsut did some quick numbers with the stadium bascially full from goal to goal on ASU side and 24 in a row and 20 rows that comes up to 4800 alone on the ASU side. (about 9600 can sit on the ASU side) (leaving 12,500 for the richmond side) and I'd say the Richmond side was half full. That would mean at least 11K in attendance!

...and I think my numbers are low!

just saying! There is no way the ticket in the stadium was accurate. This was the worst game situation I have ever encountered in NCAA football!

[MaxASU'81]

Missoula, MT (according to Wikipedia) metro area = 97,000
Carbondale = 23,000. The largest city in a one-hour drive anywhere. So to get 6 to 8000 to attend a game with that small of a population base does say something. In the Missouri Valley (BB) conference:

Omaha
Wichita
Bloomington, IL
Peoria, IL
Des Moines
Terre Haute

all are quite a bit over 100,000 - or near it. So we've always been at a disadvantage, attendance wise. If you can believe it, back in the 70s the MVC was a division 1 football conference, and we were trying to compete with the 'big boys', when our COUNTY's population is smaller than some stadiums...

The entire population of Watauga County is 45K and we draw 26K (ish) per game! Boone has no Metro Area!

[caribbeanhen]

There was no way we were going to sell out, but that crowd was way worse than what we would have gotten with weather like last week. We average 8k and reported attendance was 2661.

whats the capacity for your stadium, can we call it a stadium?

[Go Lehigh TU owl]

You guys can make fun of our fans all you want. The number of people who attend a game, unfortunately for you big schools, does not determine wins and losses :)

By the way, these numbers have to say something about Nova home games in both basketball and football. 31 wins in a row at the Pavilion in basketball, 17 won home games in the last 18 in football.

And Nova has one of the largest student sections in College Basketball during games played at the Wachovia Center. We're very happy being a pretty good FCS football team, and one of the best college basketball teams in the country :)

I'm excited for the William and Mary game this weekend. At least most W&M fans have more to say about the actual football games than complaining about fan attendance...

Let's not kid ourselves, Villanova is not loved by all in Philadelphia. Those that follow the Cats in SEPA are mostly 'Nova peple. Villanova is in no way Philly's adopted college team. While 'Nova has been good the last couple of years, their support is decent at best. With that said, Temple's attendance is not where it should be either. In fact no college program in Philly draws like they probably should. 'Nova gets 6,500 at the Pavilion and 10-13k at the Wachovia center unless it's a big, big game.

[Sader87]

Delaware, App St and Montana are the exceptions attendence-wise in the FCS. I think it's great that they have such great fan bases (much like Holy Cross did before it went into the Patriot League) but if you look at the NCAA attendence figures, very few schools draw over 10,000 on average in the FCS.

[VUCats02]

I agree TU owl. It's a shame :/ Philadelphia is definitely not a college football city. Basketball on the other hand I'd have to argue...The Big 5 is legendary.

[Go Lehigh TU owl]

I agree TU owl. It's a shame :/ Philadelphia is definitely not a college football city. Basketball on the other hand I'd have to argue...The Big 5 is legendary.

The Big 5 is legendary but in all honesty i think it's better appreciated by those that live outside of the area. I don't think it draws in the casual Philly sports fan like it used to. Being a Temple alum i got the privilege of storming the court at the Palestra and i'll never forget that. However, to many in the area that's probably not a big deal. The whole Big 5 thing is kind of weird at this point imo. It's unfortunate in reality.

[jlcharles]

whats the capacity for your stadium, can we call it a stadium?

12500, but more importantly, shouldn't you be posting in crapsville instead?

[caribbeanhen]

12500, but more importantly, shouldn't you be posting in crapsville instead?

Crapsville? not such a bad place, now Philly on the other hand...how do yuz guize say it....fahgetuhbowdeh

[09griz]

You people really don't get what it's like to not be a single sport school.

SIU is a basketball school with a now mediocre basketball team. Most students and locals don't give two ****s about the football team.

UM is pretty much a football fan's school. Though our women's and men's B-Ball has been doing quite well over the last five years...and we do have a lacrosse team that uses WA-Griz

[Black and Gold Express]

The weather in Richmond probably kept 3-4k away, I am sad to say. They figured they could just watch it on TV. I think this goes for some UR fans, a lot of ASU fans and the casual walk-up fans we might have gotten on a sunny afternoon who weren't willing to come out when it was snowing and 34. The people who were there made a lot of noise though.

From my POV on the ASU side, it seemed that there were far more ASU fans there than UR fans. I agree the weather was a factor, but I am guessing (hoping for your sake) that it kept far more UR fans away than it did ASU fans. I am sure there were some fence sitters on our side that decided to stay at home and watch it on TV, but I felt really sorry for the UR team that at their final home game of the year they were playing in almost a road atmosphere.

[SU Jag]

I hope more folks show up in chatty!

[siuham]

UM is pretty much a football fan's school. Though our women's and men's B-Ball has been doing quite well over the last five years...and we do have a lacrosse team that uses WA-Griz

I wish. :(

[Redbird Ray]

Even if attendance at all of these games happens to be 4 or 5K less than what it actually is, these numbers still suck. How does FCS expect to gain any further credibility when fanbases of the winning programs do not even take the playoffs seriously? It seems to me that there are about ten or so programs in the country whose fanbases are really genuinely excited about the playoffs and the rest of the teams in the country are sort of vanilla toward the whole thing.

I was at the SIU round 1 game against EIU and there was easily 7-10K people tailgating throughout the entire game. Why don't those people come inside and fill the stadium? I can understand if it's Indiana State or some D2 team, but common, these are the playoffs!!! I don't mean to call out SIU, I'm just using them as an example bc I bet it's like this at most FCS schools around the country (except App, Montana, Delaware, JMU, and that crowd).

I don't blame ESPN for saying **** off to FCS except for the last two games of the year.

SIU- get your redneck fans out of the parking lot and into the stadium!

Nova- for all the crap I hear about how awesome you and the CAA are, you guys sure are pretty soft if you're going to let a couple inches of snow keep your fanbase at home!

Richmond- pretty crappy support for the defending national champs!

Montana- thank you. That said, I thought you guys had 25K at every game?!

Rant over.

[Mikeyosef]

4K, 5K, 10K regular season attendance...it's the playoffs. I would expect much better attendance for games like these. It was absolutely embarrassing to see the stadiums for most of the games saturday at least half empty. With attendance like this it's not hard to imagine many more schools dropping football. I just hate it. I hope for the Chattanooga's chamber of commerce sake that App makes to the finals; otherwise that game will be less than fully attended. No offense meant to the Griz I'm sure you travel well but Chatty is a long way from Missoula. To bad it can't be App v Montana in the finals; that would fill the stadium.

[siuham]

xdeadhorsex

It must be nice to come from a school that's really good at one sport and has lots of support for it.

But seriously, we get it. We know our attendance is ****ing terrible. Guess what? It's not going to change. Get over it. The football fans here hate it, we don't need to be told it's awful to know it's awful, but there's nothing that'll change that other than a national championship.

Do you think App or Montana would have the support it has without their numerous titles/title appearances? Seriously?

SIU has been to the title game once. We won that game. It was 26 years ago. But SIU has also been Indiana State bad for most of their football lives. I think attendance numbers may go up if we continue to stay at the top because there will be more and more alums from the school that witnessed a good football team for their entire stay at SIU (ala me, playoffs every year I've been here.)

SIU is 309-362-10 in football since 1945.
After the 1983 championship, to 2002, SIU was 65-142. Two 1 win seasons, three 2 win seasons, and only 2 winning seasons.
Since then, SIU has been 70-19. It's been a huge turnaround, but there's still a long ass way to go before we get a lot of Alumni support.

[Torgo]

Montana- thank you. That said, I thought you guys had 25K at every game?!

Attendance is always down for the playoff games because of the student section being much smaller this time of year because of Thanksgiving Break and the end of the semester.

[Mikeyosef]

Yes. It makes sense that attendance would be down for Thanksgiving weekend playoff games but that's no excuse for this past Saturday.

BTW; When I was at App State, many moons ago, we never made it higher than number 10 in the polls. There were some really stinky years in there. Granted, attendance was no where near what it is today, typically the visitor side was almost empty, but the home side was pretty full. Maybe it's just the economy but the playoffs seem more poorly attended than usual..... Not to beat a dead horse or anything.

[BloomHusky'01]

Weather was a huge factor in the attendance at 'Nova. I can endure a lot for a good college game, especially playoffs, but I bailed at halftime. The combination of heavy snow and wind made the conditions really uncomfortable. More than that, it made the driving conditions very concerning (although it really didn't get that bad).