Analyzing 2007 Spring Game Attendance
13 comments so far
April 25, 2007 by
I think it's fair to say that the tradition of college football spring scrimmages has turned the corner. What began as an opportunity for teams to knock off the rust and evaluate talent in the off season, has morphed into events that are more about entertaining fans and wooing recruits than anything happening on the field. But, most fans don't seem to mind since it's an inexpensive opportunity to get their off season football fix.
At Alabama they were turning away people at the gate after 92,000 Crimson Tide fans flooded the stadium to see Nick Saban in action. Four other schools this spring, including Nebraska, had over 50,000 fans in attendance and a total of 23 schools had at least 15,000 show up for what is basically a glorified practice.
(There are more pretty graphs after the jump.)
Here are the attendance numbers (with sources where available) for all of the schools our crack staff could muster*.
| Alabama | 92138 |
| Ohio State | 75310 |
| Penn State | 71000 |
| Nebraska | 54288 |
| Notre Dame | 51852 |
| Florida | 47500 |
| Texas | 42500 |
| South Carolina | 35153 |
| Auburn | 31757 |
| Louisville | 28000 |
| Florida State | 25000 |
| Michigan State | 25000 |
| Texas A&M | 24212 |
| Georgia | 21407 |
| Oklahoma | 21020 |
| Clemson | 20000 |
| Iowa | 19000 |
| Wisconsin | 18020 |
| Tennessee | 17409 |
| Ole Miss | 17000 |
| BYU | 16752 |
| Kansas State | 16732 |
| Minnesota | 15000 |
| Oklahoma State | 15000 |
| USC | 15000 |
| NC State | 14800 |
| LSU | 14375 |
| Rutgers | 11079 |
| Illinois | 10000 |
| Missouri | 10000 |
| Arizona | 9500 |
| Kansas | 8000 |
| Marshall | 7922 |
| Central Michigan | 7107 |
| Iowa State | 7000 |
| Miami | 7000 |
| Boise State | 6831 |
| Colorado | 6000 |
| Michigan | 5500 |
| Arizona State | 5250 |
| Cincinnati | 5200 |
| North Texas | 5194 |
| Kentucky | 5000 |
| Mississippi St | 5000 |
| Colorado State | 4631 |
| Arkansas | 4000 |
| West Virginia | 3500 |
| California | 2000 |
| Syracuse | 2000 |
| Vanderbilt | 2000 |
| Virginia | 1000 |
| Indiana | 600 |
* Note: Texas A&M and UCLA haven't played their spring games yet. Michigan doesn't have a formal spring game, but fans do attend the final practice. Please send additions or corrections to jason@bigrednetwork.com or leave a comment below.
Husker Spring Game History
Nebraska's Spring Game has traditionally had some of the highest attendance numbers in the nation. Over 60,000 Husker fans flocked to the 1998 practice, the first that featured Frank Solich as head coach. However, interest waned during the rest of the Solich era until coming back to life under Callahan.
Spring Game as a Recruiting Tool
Many successful football programs have leveraged these well attended scrimmages and turned them into a valuable recruiting tool.
"For us, [the spring game is] a recruiting tool. We'll have a number of our key recruits on campus, as many as we can get on, and put on a presentation for them before the game as well as during the game. And if they can walk in and see 40,000, that's a lot better than 20,000."-- Wisconsin Head Coach Bret Bielema
Many smaller programs have also recognized this and are actively marketing their spring games to their fan base. Kansas State head coach Ron Prince approached athletic director Casey Scott shortly after being hired and talked about plans to turn the Wildcat spring game into more of an event for fans and recruits.
“Under coach Snyder, we were probably (drawing) anywhere from 12-15,000 or 10-12,000. Coach Prince came to us and clearly let it be known to us that he wanted to make it a major event. He wanted to have the purple nation come together in the spring."--KSU AD Casey Scott
Not all coaches are on board the spring game band wagon though.
“I’ve got all I can do just coaching the football team. Marketing aspects and things like that aren’t my cup of tea. I don’t think I’m the one who should drive that vehicle.But I think that there has been some talk about doing some things to promote the spring game, try to get it more exposure. I think our administration is working on it, but I don’t feel that’s something I need to drive.”
--Kansas Head Coach Mark Mangino
We'll see if Mangino's hands-off approach to spring game marketing pays off. One things most of us can agree on is that the spring game does not count towards a teams win-loss record. Cough...Aggies...Cough.
Related: Here are the 2006 Spring Game Attendance numbers. Also, read what others are saying about this story EDSBS, Spartan Tail Gate, Clays Bama Page, Tider Insider, Rocky Top Talk, Capstone Report
Update: Added Louisville (28,000) thanks to a comment over at EDSBS. Leave a comment if you see any other errors or omissions.
Update #2: Updated West Virginia's attendance to 3500 (from 1000). Thanks for the email Aaron. Sorry I short changed you!
Update #3: Added Marshall (a respectable 7922)
Update #4: Updated Illinois' attendance to 10000 (from 500). My original number was the attendance at one of the earlier spring scrimmages, not the spring game. My apologies Illini fans.
Update #5: Added Central Michigan (7107). Thanks Mike!
Update #6: Added North Texas (5194). Thanks for the comment Long Jim.
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Related Stories: Red-White Game, Spring Practice
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Matt Apr 25 07
I know it isn't a good excuse but it was 25 degrees and snowing in Morgantown during the WVU spring game. I'm sure it has a lot to do with the embarrassing attendance numbers.
Jason Apr 25 07
No need to be embarrassed Matt. I'm sure most of these schools' numbers would be much lower if it were snowing there.
Can anyone point to a spring game that brought in more than 20,000 people in less than ideal weather?
My hunch is that no matter how die-hard we are as fans during the season, we all become a little more fair-weather in the spring.
F.M. Apr 25 07
Ohio State had more than 20k a few years back in the midst of freezing rain & high winds.
Alchemist Apr 25 07
I think you hit on a very good point. Spring practice is becoming more of a recruiting tool, and an opportunity to market your program. It will be interesting next year to revist the statistic you compiled and see how much spring attendance increases on average across the country.
Freehawk Apr 26 07
It would be interesting to note which schools charged attendance and which did not, to go with those figures.
Jason Apr 26 07
Freehawk: Here are the prices I know of:
Ohio State - $5
Nebraska - $8
Notre Dame - $15
I haven't heard of anyone charging more than $20. At that level, I doubt that ticket prices have much impact on attendance.
In fact, I think that the low (or free) admission prices are a big reason why attendance is so high at some of these schools. Even at $20 it's a pretty cheap day at the stadium compared to regular season ticket prices.
MS husker in KS Apr 26 07
Please Jason, don't give the AD any encouragement to raise the price. I have been driving up for years and look forward to it, but $20 would most likely put an end to that.
Jason Apr 26 07
MS: I doubt Steve Pederson will ask me for permission to increase ticket prices. :)
But, your point is well taken. Raising Spring Game ticket prices to $15 or $20 or more would look greedy and probably cause a drop in attendance (which is bad for recruiting) or an increase in fan expectations (which means the band would have to rehearse for a half time show, someone would have to oil up the Der-veiner-slinger, and the 1st team offense would have to play the 1st team defense).
But so far Pederson hasn't been too aggressive with raising regular season ticket prices ($4 per game this year), so I'd be surprise to see him jack up spring game prices.
Charlie Apr 26 07
Easter weekend, 30 mph wind, and temps in the high 30s kept Oklahoma's attendance low, 21k or so.
benny Apr 26 07
Arizona State had at least 10,000 people in the stands. I have no idea where that figure came from, as the half of the lower bowl was filled.
Jason Apr 26 07
Benny: According to The Arizona Republic the attendance was 5,250 at the ASU spring game.
Thanks for the first hand report though. How was the weather?
A different Charlie Apr 29 07
Also keeping OUs attendance low, IMO, is the fact that your spring game was on ESPN.
I used to live 5 hours from Clemson, and would go up for the spring game. There's no way I'd have done that if it were televised, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.
Tiger Fan in OKC
LongJim May 01 07
Todd Dodge's hire at UNT raised Mean Green attendance to 5200 for their spring game. A huge increase over past years, and would put North Texas on your list. Nice job.