Even with the schools in the SEC that are not very good the football game weekends are normally a very big event. I’ve been to some Big Ten and ACC schools on their football weekends and it appears to be a similar experience. It may be just my limited experience but most of the big football atmospheres are in locations with limited pro sports competing for fans.
In grad school I worked for the athletic department and most recruits from all sports would be brought in during big football weekends as there was a large selection of “youth related activities” for them to attend such as fraternity parties or concerts that coincided with the weekends. Recruits and their families would visit the academic departments and athletic facilities on Friday and be taken around to the different tailgates before the game on Saturday. They would then go to the game but often the non football recruits would not stay the entire game. The players take out the recruits on Friday and Saturday nights.
Mississippi State along with some of the other SEC schools have big baseball followings. It is not unusual to have 8,00 to 10,000 attend the Friday, Saturday and Sunday weekend series with many more family members in town but not attending the games. There are tailgates and other collateral events for that. The biggest weekend will have a football spring game in addition to the baseball series. MSU will also have fall squad scrimmages during football weekends that draw a lot of fans.
We had some recruiting weekends after football season during a big basketball game weekend but it really doesn’t compare to the massive weekend long numbers of the other two time periods. Even during the heights of our men’s and women’s programs we would sell out the coliseum but depending on the time of the game a majority of the fans would drive in and drive out the same day.