FOOTBALL

Does College Football Have An Attendance Problem?

There was a lot of talk about college football stadium’s not being sold out or down in attendance over the weekend.

The cost is obviously a factor. Penn State and Oklahoma have been criticized for ticket increases and eliminating seating for next season.

I don’t think the Coliseum is better or worse than many stadiums but this is a USC blog so here are my issues with going to a college football game:

  • The games are too long. During Saturday’s game, there were constant TV timeouts. It took 3 hours, 36 minutes with all the commercials on NBC.
  • The seats: They are narrower than the old Coliseum seats (pre-renovation) and can be uncomfortable for such a long game. Also, the leg room is really tight if the seats around you are full.
  • The aisles get clogged very easily, making it difficult to leave your seat.
  • The food prices: A chicken sandwich from Chick-fil-A costs $14. A jumbo hot dog is $17.
  • At the Coliseum, you are lucky if you get one replay on the video board of plays under review. It makes following the game difficult.
  • Friends tell me the restrooms run our of paper towels by halftime of every home game.

What else? Let me know. Yes, I’m sure some things are worse at the Rose Bowl. The point is some of these issues are nation-wide and I can see why fans choose to stay home and watch games on TV.

58 thoughts on “Does College Football Have An Attendance Problem?”

    1. Forgot to list other reasons:

      USC charging for tailgating spots.

      Charging $100 to print & mail tickets.

      Parking enforcement writing tickets, even if you’re parked in a valid parking spot. (Claiming non-structure parking is for oversized vehicles only, even though there is no such signage and we had parked in those spots for more than a decade. Oversized vehicles should arrive early enough to get one of those spaces!)

      We tried ordering our food from USC catering. They will deliver to your tailgating spot. Their prices are worse than the Coliseum.

      Last, but certainly not least…rude, Cowardly Gabby type of fans.

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      2. It still comes down to the product on the field being sub par. Have not gone to a game in many years but at that time the tailgating around the coliseum was really fun but parking was expensive and usually ended up in someone backyard where your car would pick up a few dents

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      1. KAM: They calculated 5 years ago that bringing in the great head coach would ensure national titles..

        DON: And they could get away with treating the fans like garbage.

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  8. 60 minutes playing time, plus half time. each team get 3 timeouts per half. so about 2 hours attributed to the teams, and here we are paying for streaming or cable and still have to sit through 2 hours of commercials, not matter what channel. ABC is the worst.

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  10. When the game starts we head out for ‘refreshments’ and otherwise, get set up, hit the comfort of the lay down couch, and about 1.5 hrs after game start, hit play. FF thru commercials, enjoy the bleep out of it, and finish the game in real time… or pay mult exorbitant fees to be miserable.

    When the game is over, it’s onto the next… or face an hour of terrible merging just to hit the main drag heading toward home. Is it even a question?

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      1. John has the right idea for day games…..but your list of horribles will come true for fans leaving at midnight….if they even make it back to where they parked….

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      3. MG – Unless you work in a a gadget, and some overpriced refreshments including a cheap plastic wristband, and maybe some face paint or a photo booth session (that’s a typical day at the zoo for us … not much animal viewing, but lots of cries for “Can we go to the zoo!”) … get a couple of miles on them that way …

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  13. Hard to get a read on the SC men’s basketball team against an over-matched foe last night, but the team seems to shoot better than in past seasons.

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    1. KAM: The midget coach took a page out of the Riley Coyote notebook and scheduled all tomato cans.

      DON: We won’t know if they are any good until January 27th when they play at Ilinois.

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  14. KAM: Some wag said that Wiley’s Adios statement was not the Gettysburg Address

    DON: That and his temper tantrum after the game still could not detract from a fun night

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    1. KAM: If something is truly dear to your heart and honest — you don’t need a piece of paper to help you share it. He didn’t even read it right.

      DON: Even after a win, Riley Coyote can’t get out of his own way.

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      1. He read it for effect….but that requires you reading it correctly [and looking up once in a while to give the reading an air of spontaneity]…..

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  15. Everyone has their own views on attending in-person or not … I’m a fan but long ago concluded this is just latter day bread and circuses … avoiding the expenses/pitfalls is my preference (with the exception of an occasional hockey match) … feel the same way about exorbitant concert attendance expenses as well (unless it’s LA’s own Intronaut making a Halley’s Comet appearance) …

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  16. Scooter,

    SC fans have suffered through the Helton and the pencil neck geek, Riley, years. SC has raised the ticket prices through the roof to where it is not fun anymore. After the configuartion of the stadium, it is confusing on where you are sitting. SC gouges you until you bleed. A crappy product, a dj that should be fired, extrodinary food prices, too many commercials, too much noise where you can’t concentrate, and the seats being smaller and the aisles narrower just makes it suck to go. I can buy a pack of great hot dogs for $8.00, get buns for a $2.00, buy a soda bottle for a $2.00, get chips and dip for another $8.00 and a seat without some drunk sitting in front of you when I am at home.

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  17. Another problem with tv viewing is you don’t get the full picture of what is happening with the defensive backs and wideouts on running plays

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    1. It’s all “Observer Effect” SC … always a +/- involved, so to each of us an optimal result … I can gladly trade crowd excitement and seeing the entire field (which is really only possible for a few plays in a game anyway and only if you are in the right seat) for avoiding traffic, parking, bad fans (they are – in most locations – the exception, but wow, the old saying about ‘it only takes one’ is so true), expense, and the ability to switch to other events (or to just follow online while enjoying other activities) …

      Since I’ve worked in “Bread and Circuses” and “Observer Effect” into comments this morning … and given the passing of Patrick Stewart … have to figure out a TNG episode name to make use of … we are presently living in a USC “All Good Things” … but that was a finale … and our decision makers are no Q …

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      1. Q:”You’ve saved humanity again, Captain Riley. “

        Captain Riley:”I don’t wish to see you again, Q!”

        Q:’You don’t get it….the tests NEVER end.!”

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      2. You nailed it MG! That plus a reference to (and I can only paraphrase without rewatching) “That’s your beginning there Riley, that warm goo …”

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  19. And being at a game cements it in the memory bank, or how many football games can we recall from merely watching them on tv compared to having been there?

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    1. True I can remember each game I’ve attended, but I can recall a huge number I’ve watched on television … for good or ill! Many of those were from so many different locations that that’s part of the enjoyment … probably my favorite USC television watching experience was from a watering hole in College Park, Maryland, in January 2003 (the Orange Bowl thrashing of the Hawkeyes) (yep, trying to pick up college girls … they weren’t buying the ugly looks and bad clothes that screamed “military with no personality”).

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      1. True, there are some games you only saw on tv that are tattooed to the memory like the “Game of the Century” in 1971 between Oklahoma and Nebraska or the 2005 game at Notre Dame

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      4. Absolutely SC … I can recall games from television all the way back to the 1973 Rose Bowl (just barely) … the 1974 55-24 ‘earthquake’ … the 1977 Rose Bowl … 1978 Cotton Bowl (Devine and Joe upset thrashing of what I was just learning about in the bad-in-primetime Bevos) … the 1978 Oklahoma fumble fest in Lincoln … and on and on (one in particular that comes to mind was the 1986 Sooners-Hurricanes slugfest in Miami … took a lot of $#!+ from the Meech-uh-goners on my college baseball team that afternoon for pulling for OU, but they got their’s later that year when a Harbaugh QB’d choke against Minnesota led to chants of “Go-Go-Gophers, watch them Go-Go-Go!” from the cartoon sub-series on the Underdog Show). A bunch more … but does that match your in-game experience? Well, as long we each enjoyed what we saw and remember it …

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      5. Oh, it was a bunch of them (why quibble – it was all of them!) … and in my case, they weren’t wrong … but like Timothy Hutton hitting on Uma Thurman unsuccessfully in “Beautiful Girls,” being there was kind of a job requirement …

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      7. Fortunately in the context of watching USC games on television I can only top that with one other recitation, and it wouldn’t pass the cut line here so to speak (but will specify the game – coincidentally, since I referred to it recently, the 1989 USC thrashing of Ohio State – and locale where watched from – Pensacola, FL, right outside the main gates of the Corry Station naval training base) … so will leave it to others to pass along anything interesting they care to offer …

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  20. DON: Did Ohio St sabotage itself by not taking the opening kickoff instead of deferring to the second half? SC surprised them with the freshman taking it to the house and the Buckeyes never had the lead

    KAM: Taking the second half kickoff eliminates the surprise factor because the opposition has had an entire half to study you

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      2. But that percentage goes way up with … ummm … coaching (as in halftime adjustments … like we were so blessed with during Pete’s tenure) … when it works … thinking of that 1974 earthquake game … obviously played before the option to defer was introduced … but the result … score at end of first half … adjust at halftime … run second half kick back … and there off!

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      4. Helton: The team that scores frst usually loses….especially if they also score second…and 100% of the time if they score second to last and last.”

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  21. Wife likes to make that “papcorn” the old fashioned way. Can’t make papcorn at the Coliseum. That 77″ tv screen and the world’s most comfortable sofa is a doozy.

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