12-02-2019, 06:37 PM
Sports, across the board, are having attendance challenges now.
People can allocate an entire day to travel to a venue (stadium/arena/track), pay for parking, bring ponchos or sunscreen, sit in rather uncomfortable seats, experience loud PA announcements and get bombarded with commercials at every break in the action.
OR
They can watch any sporting event at home on a 60+ inch television. Allocating far less time, at far lower cost, often for a much better viewing experience even if the weather is perfect at the venue.
Most sports can still hold on to their most loyal fans, but the casual fans are now watching from home or not at all. Some universities, particularly large state schools in the South, have cultivated highly engaged fan bases for football over decades. Stanford has never enjoyed a large, super passionate set of football fans. The latest stretch of unprecedented success overwhelmed the national attendance trends, but in 2019 the prevailing trend was not masked by that atypical winning percentage.
FWIW - the #1 tOSU vs #12 Michigan game had empty seats in the student section at kickoff. They filled in eventually, but that would not have happened in the past. As the game ended it was clear that ~25% of the fans in the stands had been tOSU fans when the 75% wearing blue left the stadium early. 20 years ago there was no way tOSU fans could have acquired that many seats in the Big House and there was no way Michigan fans would have left early no matter the score in the fourth quarter.
People can allocate an entire day to travel to a venue (stadium/arena/track), pay for parking, bring ponchos or sunscreen, sit in rather uncomfortable seats, experience loud PA announcements and get bombarded with commercials at every break in the action.
OR
They can watch any sporting event at home on a 60+ inch television. Allocating far less time, at far lower cost, often for a much better viewing experience even if the weather is perfect at the venue.
Most sports can still hold on to their most loyal fans, but the casual fans are now watching from home or not at all. Some universities, particularly large state schools in the South, have cultivated highly engaged fan bases for football over decades. Stanford has never enjoyed a large, super passionate set of football fans. The latest stretch of unprecedented success overwhelmed the national attendance trends, but in 2019 the prevailing trend was not masked by that atypical winning percentage.
FWIW - the #1 tOSU vs #12 Michigan game had empty seats in the student section at kickoff. They filled in eventually, but that would not have happened in the past. As the game ended it was clear that ~25% of the fans in the stands had been tOSU fans when the 75% wearing blue left the stadium early. 20 years ago there was no way tOSU fans could have acquired that many seats in the Big House and there was no way Michigan fans would have left early no matter the score in the fourth quarter.