"...this is also quite possibly because Seattle is a garbage town and watching college football offered a brief respite from the endless, endless stream of trash"
This is absolutely hilarious. I'm also curious, Leland, why do you feel this way about Seattle?
Red Sox had the Curse of the Bambino. What have we Cal fans done to deserve this run of futility? We've come close SO many times. And now, with attendance coming back and the Bears poised to have one of their best teams ever, we're staring down the barrel of a cancelled season. : (
Looks like the attendance decline corresponds with the P12's new TV deals with ESPN and Fox which means a bunch of 7:30pm kickoffs. Back when the Bears played on Versus or FSN or no TV and you knew most kickoffs were between noon and 4pm I think a lot more casual fans would show up. Kickoff times have a bigger influence than product on the field.
I think you answered your own question--the data would lose meaning because it would be divided into too many categories and factors like opponent or even a big concert across town would have too great of an influence.
Seemed like the lesson of the Tedford era was that the fans start coming back in the third year of winning. If perhaps we can count Wilcox's second year as a "win" (finished .500, but that was better than expected), you'd expect attendance to rise in 2020. Now of course COVID will be an unusual factor working against that, but I'd expect more interest in the Bears for this upcoming season, whether people can attend or not.
Plus, the even-year/2020 schedule looks pretty good. TCU is a cool program to visit us plus the factor of Cheez-It II: The Re-Cheez-ening; there are also big conference games of Oregon, Washington, UC Los Angeles, and the Big Game.
Hopefully with the Raiders leaving for the desert, Cal is able to pick up a few thousand fans as they are the only major football team within an hour's drive. I would have been more optimistic we can start to pull in some casuals if it weren't for the pandemic.
This is more optimistic than I thought. I'm curious to see in a COVID-19 era what impact this will have on attendance, whether or not we play this season or witness a deferral until 2021.
I could see it going in either extreme (assuming the season happens, fans are allowed, yadda yadda yadda).
If things aren't going well in terms of COVID, I could see attendance plummet if people are justifiably reluctant to go to such a large, public event.
If things seem under control, I could see attendance nationwide increase with people taking advantage of large gatherings after being under SIP for so long. Of course, these people who are in the Bay Area could also go do any of the thousands of other activities and the bump might not be too pronounced over here.
I'm assuming this is ticket sale data and not turnstile data. I've already bought my tickets for 2020, but I'm not at all confident that I'm going to attend any games this Fall.
Stanfurd topping Cal in attendance*
*This is what an average 73.4% attendance looks like:
https://twitter.com/insidenu/status/1167888672064061440
Standard Furdie inflation at work
I imagine we're guilty of reporting based on tickets sold over attendance, too. Thankfully, our attendance will never be Furd level bad.
"...this is also quite possibly because Seattle is a garbage town and watching college football offered a brief respite from the endless, endless stream of trash"
This is absolutely hilarious. I'm also curious, Leland, why do you feel this way about Seattle?
It knows what it did.
Red Sox had the Curse of the Bambino. What have we Cal fans done to deserve this run of futility? We've come close SO many times. And now, with attendance coming back and the Bears poised to have one of their best teams ever, we're staring down the barrel of a cancelled season. : (
The only explanation is.....Because Cal!
Looks like the attendance decline corresponds with the P12's new TV deals with ESPN and Fox which means a bunch of 7:30pm kickoffs. Back when the Bears played on Versus or FSN or no TV and you knew most kickoffs were between noon and 4pm I think a lot more casual fans would show up. Kickoff times have a bigger influence than product on the field.
I think you answered your own question--the data would lose meaning because it would be divided into too many categories and factors like opponent or even a big concert across town would have too great of an influence.
Seemed like the lesson of the Tedford era was that the fans start coming back in the third year of winning. If perhaps we can count Wilcox's second year as a "win" (finished .500, but that was better than expected), you'd expect attendance to rise in 2020. Now of course COVID will be an unusual factor working against that, but I'd expect more interest in the Bears for this upcoming season, whether people can attend or not.
Plus, the even-year/2020 schedule looks pretty good. TCU is a cool program to visit us plus the factor of Cheez-It II: The Re-Cheez-ening; there are also big conference games of Oregon, Washington, UC Los Angeles, and the Big Game.
Hopefully with the Raiders leaving for the desert, Cal is able to pick up a few thousand fans as they are the only major football team within an hour's drive. I would have been more optimistic we can start to pull in some casuals if it weren't for the pandemic.
But would they be the Blue Hole or the Gold Hole?
This is more optimistic than I thought. I'm curious to see in a COVID-19 era what impact this will have on attendance, whether or not we play this season or witness a deferral until 2021.
I could see it going in either extreme (assuming the season happens, fans are allowed, yadda yadda yadda).
If things aren't going well in terms of COVID, I could see attendance plummet if people are justifiably reluctant to go to such a large, public event.
If things seem under control, I could see attendance nationwide increase with people taking advantage of large gatherings after being under SIP for so long. Of course, these people who are in the Bay Area could also go do any of the thousands of other activities and the bump might not be too pronounced over here.
I'm assuming this is ticket sale data and not turnstile data. I've already bought my tickets for 2020, but I'm not at all confident that I'm going to attend any games this Fall.