I don’t think Covid had much of an affect on attendance. In fact, people were excited to get back to normalcy after a year without being able to attend a game, especially early in the season. Pac12, like all conferences, sold their soul to the networks, and the affect on attendance is not at all surprising:
I don’t think Covid had much of an affect on attendance. In fact, people were excited to get back to normalcy after a year without being able to attend a game, especially early in the season. Pac12, like all conferences, sold their soul to the networks, and the affect on attendance is not at all surprising:
• Not setting game times until 12 or even 6 days before kickoff. People need to be able to plan. If the gametime isn’t set, people will prioritize other events, family activities, etc. It’s like asking a girl out but not telling her what time you’ll pick her up until the day of your date. If you’re not going to commit to her, why should she want to go out with you?
• Too many night kickoffs. Before moving back to the Bay Area 15 years ago, I used to drive down from the Folsom area with my young kids, rarely missing a game. There’s no way I could do that with so many 7:30 and 8pm kickoffs, as I wouldn’t get home until 1:00am at the earliest. It’s also tough on octogenarians who don’t want to be driving that late.
• Waiting too late to set the schedule. Kudos to the Pac12 for announcing the 2022 schedule last month. In recent years we’ve had to wait until February or March. As a result many people are unable to schedule their vacations around Cal football games. (September and November are great months to visit Europe, but generally you have to book your trip many months in advance.)
• We’ve already lost a generation of potential fans owing to the above reasons. The biggest hit on attendance as a result of whoring to the networks is the inability of young families to attend games. My kids, now all in their 20s, love to go to games because it’s in their DNA. Kids who have grown up in the “networks first” era, have never had the game experience, have no desire to go, and won’t be bringing their kids to games.
Priority 1 for George Kliavkoff in the next TV deal should be to allow the conference to have greater control of scheduling, especially kickoff times. If the basketball schedule, with 3X as many games, can be set, including tipoff times for all but a couple of games, why can’t they do it for football? Given that it’s a zero sum game, I doubt all the last-minute jockeying to select games makes any difference to overall viewership for each network. I also think it would be easier/more efficient for the networks to move their resources as necessary if kickoff times were set earlier.
"Not setting game times until 12 or even 6 days before kickoff. People need to be able to plan. If the gametime isn’t set, people will prioritize other events, family activities, etc. It’s like asking a girl out but not telling her what time you’ll pick her up until the day of your date. If you’re not going to commit to her, why should she want to go out with you?" Could not have put it better myself. Thank you for expressing this frustrating aspect of the current college football experience so well. The failure to set game times before the start of the season and the late kick offs are real turn offs to many. I go to all home games no matter what but there are many, many more causal fans who are dissuaded by these factors.
Also, parents/kids have more weekend obligations nowadays than they did when I was growing up. If you have a kid in club soccer (much less multiple little ones) then fuggetaboutit.
Those are definitely challenges that hurt attendance, but those have been factors for years without such a pronounced impact as we saw for 2021 compared to 2019.
Nice article, but not sure why the focus is primarily on the last two years. IIRC attendance at college football games has been on a steady decline for years. The chart you included for Cal basically shows that we had roughly 60,000 during Tedford, 50,000 during Dykes, and now 40,000 something during Wilcox years. The mystery has yet to be solved, e.g., millennials don't go out, erratic scheduling, not consistently winning, ticket prices, better TV coverage and picture quality, etc. etc. So this is not unique to Cal.
The focus is on the last two years because this is not the first time we've broken down attendance and it would be pointless to belabor the same observations about the earlier seasons.
There's certainly been a steady decrease since 2006, but the drop over the past two years is massive relative to everything else in this timeframe. The only drop of a similar magnitude was in 2014, when we were breaking in a new coach who just went 1–11. To me, that's a notable deviation from the trends and thus worth focusing on.
I think initially a lot of people reluctantly accepted the idiocy of the last-minute scheduling, but over time they just said F it, it's not worth the nonsense. I haven't reached that point yet, but if I still lived 100 miles from campus, I would have. Plus, the generational aspect (my 4th bullet point) is just now starting to take effect. Also, odd year comparisons probably aren't as valuable re trends, especially with a 12:30 game being replaced last-minute by an 8pm kickoff two weeks later (although I was impressed with the turnout for u$c, given the circumstances). With a markedly stronger schedule in even years, we should have a better idea after the '22 season.
I don’t think Covid had much of an affect on attendance. In fact, people were excited to get back to normalcy after a year without being able to attend a game, especially early in the season. Pac12, like all conferences, sold their soul to the networks, and the affect on attendance is not at all surprising:
• Not setting game times until 12 or even 6 days before kickoff. People need to be able to plan. If the gametime isn’t set, people will prioritize other events, family activities, etc. It’s like asking a girl out but not telling her what time you’ll pick her up until the day of your date. If you’re not going to commit to her, why should she want to go out with you?
• Too many night kickoffs. Before moving back to the Bay Area 15 years ago, I used to drive down from the Folsom area with my young kids, rarely missing a game. There’s no way I could do that with so many 7:30 and 8pm kickoffs, as I wouldn’t get home until 1:00am at the earliest. It’s also tough on octogenarians who don’t want to be driving that late.
• Waiting too late to set the schedule. Kudos to the Pac12 for announcing the 2022 schedule last month. In recent years we’ve had to wait until February or March. As a result many people are unable to schedule their vacations around Cal football games. (September and November are great months to visit Europe, but generally you have to book your trip many months in advance.)
• We’ve already lost a generation of potential fans owing to the above reasons. The biggest hit on attendance as a result of whoring to the networks is the inability of young families to attend games. My kids, now all in their 20s, love to go to games because it’s in their DNA. Kids who have grown up in the “networks first” era, have never had the game experience, have no desire to go, and won’t be bringing their kids to games.
Priority 1 for George Kliavkoff in the next TV deal should be to allow the conference to have greater control of scheduling, especially kickoff times. If the basketball schedule, with 3X as many games, can be set, including tipoff times for all but a couple of games, why can’t they do it for football? Given that it’s a zero sum game, I doubt all the last-minute jockeying to select games makes any difference to overall viewership for each network. I also think it would be easier/more efficient for the networks to move their resources as necessary if kickoff times were set earlier.
"Not setting game times until 12 or even 6 days before kickoff. People need to be able to plan. If the gametime isn’t set, people will prioritize other events, family activities, etc. It’s like asking a girl out but not telling her what time you’ll pick her up until the day of your date. If you’re not going to commit to her, why should she want to go out with you?" Could not have put it better myself. Thank you for expressing this frustrating aspect of the current college football experience so well. The failure to set game times before the start of the season and the late kick offs are real turn offs to many. I go to all home games no matter what but there are many, many more causal fans who are dissuaded by these factors.
Yes, THIS....families can't really make a plan to go to the game unless they all block off the whole day, and not all families can do that.
Also, parents/kids have more weekend obligations nowadays than they did when I was growing up. If you have a kid in club soccer (much less multiple little ones) then fuggetaboutit.
Those are definitely challenges that hurt attendance, but those have been factors for years without such a pronounced impact as we saw for 2021 compared to 2019.
Nice article, but not sure why the focus is primarily on the last two years. IIRC attendance at college football games has been on a steady decline for years. The chart you included for Cal basically shows that we had roughly 60,000 during Tedford, 50,000 during Dykes, and now 40,000 something during Wilcox years. The mystery has yet to be solved, e.g., millennials don't go out, erratic scheduling, not consistently winning, ticket prices, better TV coverage and picture quality, etc. etc. So this is not unique to Cal.
The youngest millennials are 23. Students and fresh grads are all Gen-Zers
The focus is on the last two years because this is not the first time we've broken down attendance and it would be pointless to belabor the same observations about the earlier seasons.
There's certainly been a steady decrease since 2006, but the drop over the past two years is massive relative to everything else in this timeframe. The only drop of a similar magnitude was in 2014, when we were breaking in a new coach who just went 1–11. To me, that's a notable deviation from the trends and thus worth focusing on.
I think initially a lot of people reluctantly accepted the idiocy of the last-minute scheduling, but over time they just said F it, it's not worth the nonsense. I haven't reached that point yet, but if I still lived 100 miles from campus, I would have. Plus, the generational aspect (my 4th bullet point) is just now starting to take effect. Also, odd year comparisons probably aren't as valuable re trends, especially with a 12:30 game being replaced last-minute by an 8pm kickoff two weeks later (although I was impressed with the turnout for u$c, given the circumstances). With a markedly stronger schedule in even years, we should have a better idea after the '22 season.