OT - Bowl Attendance in the crapper so far.

[huskymedic]

http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2012/12/military_bowl_reports_college.html#incart_flyout_sports

With almost a third of the bowls played so far, bowl attendance continues what has been an ongoing decline in recent years. The announced crowds for the first 11 bowl games declined 7 percent from those same games last year and were down 10 percent from 2010.

The Military Bowl announced its crowd Thursday for San Jose State-Bowling Green at 17,835, the lowest reported attendance by any bowl in seven years. "We knew the attendance might not be the greatest, with a West Coast team and a cold, windy day," Military Bowl President Steve Beck said in a statement. "That's not what we're about. We're about more than that."

 

[Srqhusky]

Plane tix into Florida from just about everywhere are 800 a piece. I make decent money and I wouldn't spend that. That has to be something to do with it

 

[nelsonmuntz]

It is not a shocker that the audience for year end exhibition games in neutral fields is declining. The bowl industry is one step above beeper salesmen in terms of modern relevance. I expect many of these bowls to just pack it in, particular if ESPN's ratings decline as I expect they will. Once fans get a taste of the playoffs, no one at all will want to watch these games.

 

[UConnDan97]

I don't mind bowl games as a method to give teams with multiple losses something to try to achieve towards the end of the year. But what's wrong with doing it at one of the team's home fields??? Give the higher ranked team the home field advantage, and watch the attendance increase to 30k+ in every one of these games...

 

[Jerry1714]

http://www.al.com/sports/index.ssf/2012/12/military_bowl_reports_college.html#incart_flyout_sports

With almost a third of the bowls played so far, bowl attendance continues what has been an ongoing decline in recent years. The announced crowds for the first 11 bowl games declined 7 percent from those same games last year and were down 10 percent from 2010.

The Military Bowl announced its crowd Thursday for San Jose State-Bowling Green at 17,835, the lowest reported attendance by any bowl in seven years. "We knew the attendance might not be the greatest, with a West Coast team and a cold, windy day," Military Bowl President Steve Beck said in a statement. "That's not what we're about. We're about more than that."

So California's San Jose State (118th nationally in average attendance) played Ohio's Bowling Green (107th in attendance) on a cold day in the nation's capital. Is anyone surprised no one showed up?

A lot of the attendance issues have to do with match ups and location.

 

[Husky25]

Outside the BCS and (more to the point) the National Championship game, each individual bowl means nothing to anyone expect alumni of the school participating and the community in which the game is played. I am a football nut and I haven't been able to get into nary a bowl game (However, I did watch some of the 1AA and II playoffs and parts of the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl...).

 

[huskymedic]

So California's San Jose State (118th nationally in average attendance) played Ohio's Bowling Green (107th in attendance) on a cold day in the nation's capital. Is anyone surprised no one showed up?

A lot of the attendance issues have to do with match ups and location.

Doesn't explain these two..

"The Holiday Bowl's listed crowd of 55,507 for Baylor-UCLA was its smallest since 1997, when the game drew 50,761." (San Diego)

"The Las Vegas Bowl's reported crowd of 33,217 for Boise State-Washington was its smallest since 2004, when there was 29,062 for Wyoming-UCLA. After six straight years with crowds exceeding 40,000, the Las Vegas averaged 34,469 the past two years."

I just think the economy, inflated travel prices from selected schools airports, and TV have as much, if not more impact as location/match-ups. Nice reward for the teams but there are too many low end/low pay-out bowls that have exceeded their life expectancy.

 

[Srqhusky]

I don't mind bowl games as a method to give teams with multiple losses something to try to achieve towards the end of the year. But what's wrong with doing it at one of the team's home fields??? Give the higher ranked team the home field advantage, and watch the attendance increase to 30k+ in every one of these games...

I agree with this. Even if they had it at a local pro stadium

 

[whaler11]

Airlines have cut so much capacity the flights at the holidays are insane. Makes it even tougher to go support the Beef O Brady's bowl.

The ratings continue to be pretty good though.

 

[huskymedic]

Airlines have cut so much capacity the flights at the holidays are insane. Makes it even tougher to go support the Beef O Brady's bowl.

The ratings continue to be pretty good though.

Agreed and to that point, the BSU/Washington Vegas Bowl game noted above had the lowest attendance in 8 years but...

John Ourand (@Ourand_SBJ)
12/28/12, 11:23 AM
Most viewed Bowl game last week: Sat's Maaco Bowl (Wash-Boise St) averaged 4.4M viewers and was cable's 3rd most viewed show for the week.

Interest remains high and fans will sit home and watch but folks just don't travel like they used to for marginal bowls. My sense is it will continue to impact regular season games well (sooner than later) and these spread out conferences (see NBE) game-day attendance will suffer despite team success.

 

[Woof 101]

Not being a wise ass but how much more can the bowls be watered down?
Do 6 & 6 teams really belong in a bowl or be expected to have people spend their vacation budget to see them possibly go 6 & 7 ?
That and every year us baby boomers are moving on and the new generation would just as soon check the score between texts and tweets. This while sitting in the man cave with a tv the size of the wall and a half dozen friends texting and tweeting.
Only hard core fans and family attend the bowls up until the ones that count....

 

[J187Money]

Airlines have cut so much capacity the flights at the holidays are insane. Makes it even tougher to go support the Beef O Brady's bowl.

The ratings continue to be pretty good though.

Our flights to Florida were 800/each. And oversold.

 

[Hoophound]

Flights are ruining a lot of my plans. Traveling to games, vacation, a weekend in NYC or Boston were all pretty commonplace for us until a couple years ago. Now, I seem to run into $700 plus fares for everything I want to do. With a family of 5, that's some serious cash. We used to head to New York for a few nights of fun for about $200 a head on JetBlue ($1000) and stay somewhere nice for another $1000. Now that $2000 mini vacation seems to run closer to 4k every time we price it. We just pass. I have the same problem hitting a football game, it just isn't worth it. Now we fly a few times per year to visit our second home and rarely bother to go anywhere else. Sucks.

 

[J187Money]

Flights are ruining a lot of my plans. Traveling to games, vacation, a weekend in NYC or Boston were all pretty commonplace for us until a couple years ago. Now, I seem to run into $700 plus fares for everything I want to do. With a family of 5, that's some serious cash. We used to head to New York for a few nights of fun for about $200 a head on JetBlue ($1000) and stay somewhere nice for another $1000. Now that $2000 mini vacation seems to run closer to 4k every time we price it. We just pass. I have the same problem hitting a football game, it just isn't worth it. Now we fly a few times per year to visit our second home and rarely bother to go anywhere else. Sucks.

Exactly. Unless I'm going alone (and I will put up with a multi-stop flight or a 2-3 hour drive from a out of the way airport to save 3-400 on a flight) it isn't worth it.

 

[Husky1964]

The ratings matter not the attendance for the 6-6 bowl games. America is mostly on vaca during the run-up to Jan 1 and everyone is glued to the high def drinking and having fun with friends and family.Even the lousy games have people watching. Only the top games and the games played close to the teams in the game really draw fannies in the seats. Been to 5 Husky Bowls, best one was beating the SEC and the Old Ball Coach 20-6. Proximity to Columbia drew many USC fans who went home disappointed.

 

[john2153]

Airlines have cut so much capacity the flights at the holidays are insane. Makes it even tougher to go support the Beef O Brady's bowl.

The ratings continue to be pretty good though.

Yup...I forget who tweeted the #'s out, might have been Rovell, but the New Mexico Bowl beat Indiana-Butler a couple weeks ago in ratings. As long as they do well in the ratings, the bowls aren't going anywhere...and considering many are owned and operated by ESPN I don't see them going anywhere.

 

[UCFBfan]

Yup...I forget who tweeted the #'s out, might have been Rovell, but the New Mexico Bowl beat Indiana-Butler a couple weeks ago in ratings. As long as they do well in the ratings, the bowls aren't going anywhere...and considering many are owned and operated by ESPN I don't see them going anywhere.

Unfortunately this is probably true yet I don't understand why schools, or states for that matter, don't object more to the system that's set up in regards to tickets. How much do schools lose on ticket allotments? I know this was a huge point of contention with the Fiesta Bowl and it painted UConn in a bad light since thousands on fans got tix through StubHub or scalpers. With prices for flights and hotels being so outlandish, why would someone pay full, overpriced, money for tickets when that's one of the few things they can get for cheaper and in better seats? The TV execs want the games because people enjoy watching them because, let's be honest, there are no other sports on right now. Outside of the NBA, there's not many NCAA games on so why not throw on a bowl game to have on either in the background or to watch? However, the schools lose more than they gain. I don't see how the Fiesta Bowl helped our school one bit. I was one of the people who adamantly defended that the loss of money was worth the price that the national exposure would garner us. If anything, it's caused the opposite as everyone points to those ticket sales as a reason why we aren't "committed" as a fan base. It's just a ridiculous set-up that I'm surprised more schools that know their fan bases won't travel (SJSU to DC for example).

 

[whaler11]

Unfortunately this is probably true yet I don't understand why schools, or states for that matter, don't object more to the system that's set up in regards to tickets. How much do schools lose on ticket allotments? I know this was a huge point of contention with the Fiesta Bowl and it painted UConn in a bad light since thousands on fans got tix through StubHub or scalpers. With prices for flights and hotels being so outlandish, why would someone pay full, overpriced, money for tickets when that's one of the few things they can get for cheaper and in better seats? The TV execs want the games because people enjoy watching them because, let's be honest, there are no other sports on right now. Outside of the NBA, there's not many NCAA games on so why not throw on a bowl game to have on either in the background or to watch? However, the schools lose more than they gain. I don't see how the Fiesta Bowl helped our school one bit. I was one of the people who adamantly defended that the loss of money was worth the price that the national exposure would garner us. If anything, it's caused the opposite as everyone points to those ticket sales as a reason why we aren't "committed" as a fan base. It's just a ridiculous set-up that I'm surprised more schools that know their fan bases won't travel (SJSU to DC for example).

It's not probably true. The bowl game on cable blew out the basketball game on network TV.

The worm has turned - everyone stopped buying tickets from schools. UConn at the Fiesta was just one of the obvious canaries in the coal mine.

 

[hungry husky]

It is not a shocker that the audience for year end exhibition games in neutral fields is declining. The bowl industry is one step above beeper salesmen in terms of modern relevance. I expect many of these bowls to just pack it in, particular if ESPN's ratings decline as I expect they will. Once fans get a taste of the playoffs, no one at all will want to watch these games.

Totally agree, NFL playoffs and NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, win or go home tournaments are the biggest in this country. NCAA football is missing out on big money. I know they can only play so many games in a season but 8 teams is reasonable.