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The Wall Street Journal
Declining Student Attendance Hits Georgia
At Campuses Across the Country, More Reasons Than Ever to Skip the Game
By BEN COHEN

Athens, Ga.

The scene at home football games here at the University of Georgia is almost perfect. The tailgate lots open at 7 a.m. Locals brag of the bar-per-capita rate. The only commodities in greater abundance than beer are the pro-Bulldogs buttons that sorority girls wear.

There's just one problem: Some students can't be bothered to come to the games.

Declining student attendance is an illness that has been spreading for years nationwide. But now it has hit the Southeastern Conference, home to college football's best teams and supposedly its most fervent fans, giving athletics officials reason to fret about future ticket sales and fundraising.

As it turns out, Georgia students left empty 39% of their designated sections of Sanford Stadium over the last four seasons, according to school records of student-ticket scans. Despite their allocation of about 18,000 seats, the number of students at games between 2009 and 2012 never exceeded 15,000.

Winning isn't even necessarily a solution. The average student crowd to see last year's Georgia team—which finished the season ranked No. 5—was almost 6,000 short of maximum capacity. Even at Alabama, 32% of student seats went unused by students between 2009 and 2012, when the Crimson Tide won three national championships. Alabama coach Nick Saban wrote a flattering letter last week in the student paper to recruit students back.


Georgia officials have been so concerned by student attendance that they reassigned 2,000 seats previously reserved for students to young alumni before this season. "It was a significant hole, and it was very noticeable," Georgia athletic director Greg McGarity said. "It was way too obvious."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... l?mod=e2fb

Is there a way to tie student attendance to class credit or extra credit or some way to in fact make attendance mandatory?

Orientation for frosh at SMU is mandatory if I'm not mistaken. Sexual assault class was mandatory as a male frosh at SMU when I was there (1995).

You get dropped from many classes at SMU if you are not on the roll sheet after the first few classes- even at the law school.

Could we in fact penalize students for not attending a football game (even if only for the first game)??

May be a stupid question - but I'd like to know for a fact that we can't

If this is common across the country, then it might behoove college football to do a little research and find out why students aren't showing up.

One thing, why show up when one can watch it on TV? There is none of that pesky flask sneaking in thing or no reentry policy to muss up the fun.

Big-time college football doesn't have the feel of "college" anymore. The prime seats are reserved for big-time donors and athletic foundation members, and students are relegated to corners or end zones. Students can tail-gate outside of the stadium, or stay home, or go to the frat house to watch the game, without the hassle of stadium cops and lines to concessions and toilets.

Those who do attend are less than fully engaged. Just look at the amount of texting, etc. next time you go.

We should have full wifi and cell coverage at Ford. I could barely get service at all at the Tech game, and I thought they'd done something to improve this before the season. this is definitely something that affects attendance IMO, maybe not for us as much as other schools, but the younger generation has to be "plugged in" 24/7 and if they can't get cell coverage for 3 hours to check Twitter or send a nude selfie in the bathroom they'll go somewhere else and watch the game.

No. 1 idea-check which games they aren't attending. I've got a feeling they are mostly those glorified exhibitions against Savanaah St. and Florida A&M that nobody gives a damn about and only fans that bought season tickets bother to show up. College Football is putting an inferior minor league product on the field and on TV in at least 30% of the games played. NFL Fans wouldn't show up for exhibition games if they weren't part of package and damn sure wouldn't if NFL teams were playing CFL teams. College FB and especially College BB is eroding the quality of its product at an alarming rate and as Ponyte points out students can watch a real game on TV

No. 1 idea-check which games they aren't attending. I've got a feeling they are mostly those glorified exhibitions against Savanaah St. and Florida A&M that nobody gives a damn about and only fans that bought season tickets bother to show up. College Football is putting an inferior minor league product on the field and on TV in at least 30% of the games played. NFL Fans wouldn't show up for exhibition games if they weren't part of package and damn sure wouldn't if NFL teams were playing CFL teams. College FB and especially College BB is eroding the quality of its product at an alarming rate and as Ponyte points out students can watch a real game on TV

Absolutely. Case in point: LSU student attendance for powerhouses like Kent State is never too good, and they always leave early. And why not? What's the cachet of watching a 48-3 game when a party awaits?

First, I'd like to thank everyone on the board for asking for my input.

I just think that a lot of kids don't grow up as fans of their colleges, so they don't care. SMU kids could care less b.c most of them didn't grow up SMU fans - they aren't from around Dallas. I was a huge SMU fan only b.c I went to all of the games growing up.

I'm not sure how much the Texas kids at UGA care about Georgia games. It's hard to get really fired up about going to games if you're not a fan of the team.

And more people seem to be skipping out on sports thanks to the nice TVs that we all have now.

SMU student attendance will be decent for big-time opponents like TCU. But that's about all.

Let's stop dwelling on student attendance and figuring out how to get more students. They just won't attend the football games unless it's a big opponent or a winning SMU team.

ponyinNC wrote:Is there a way to tie student attendance to class credit or extra credit or some way to in fact make attendance mandatory?

Orientation for frosh at SMU is mandatory if I'm not mistaken. Sexual assault class was mandatory as a male frosh at SMU when I was there (1995).

You get dropped from many classes at SMU if you are not on the roll sheet after the first few classes- even at the law school.

Could we in fact penalize students for not attending a football game (even if only for the first game)??

May be a stupid question - but I'd like to know for a fact that we can't

Really? Should students be penalized for not attending other sporting events too, or just football? If just football, how do you defend the distinction? How about other school sponsored events such as theater or orchestra, would you support penalizing students for not attending those events? If not, how do you defend the distinction?


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SMU student attendance at games has been bad as far as I can remember. Don't know if the Boulevard helped, but I assume it did. If you want to get increased student attendance at SMU, it will need to do some of the following:

1) Loosen up (unofficially) a bit on students trying to smuggle their spirits into the game;
2) Make the game presentation less Mickey Mouse and have better music and entertainment between plays and at half time..includes getting rid of the crappy announcers and bush league background stuff that makes one embarrassed to be associated with the school
3) Better food and concessions and have a place just for students with I.D. to congregate and get free stuff..like above the hill over there in the South End Zone.
4) Get a bigger band - the one now is embarrassingly small. You can't even hear them.
5) WIN MORE, BABY!

That'd be a start. No guarantees though.

If the Methodists embraced SMU like the Catholics and Baptists embraced ND and Baylor, respectively, SMU would be much better off. Get those congregations in the stands, the kids growing up wanting to come to SMU to play and study. Imagine that. A built-in fan base that is ignored. So sad.

sure wish we had Georgia's problem; pretty frightening to have 2-3,000 empty seats in an 85,000 seat venue

Charleston Pony wrote:sure wish we had Georgia's problem; pretty frightening to have 2-3,000 empty seats in an 85,000 seat venue

Charleston you live near GA and I'm in GA, so you've probably seen this. They have a really fickle fanbase. Richt has been winning 10 games a year for a while, yet he is always on the hot seat. The complaint here is that UGA gets too many 5 star players who don't play up to their rankings. (Imagine that) Richt is too laid back. He's too much of a Christian. He's not mean like Saban. Does any of this sound familiar?

Their last championship was during the Herchel days, so their young fans have no clue of their winning tradition. They also suffer from the same problem as SMU. They have a lot of preppy kids from Atlanta, Dallas , Memphis, and Birmingham who don't value football as much as the children of the Valdosta dirt farmers.

Stallion wrote:No. 1 idea-check which games they aren't attending. I've got a feeling they are mostly those glorified exhibitions against Savanaah St. and Florida A&M that nobody gives a damn about and only fans that bought season tickets bother to show up. College Football is putting an inferior minor league product on the field and on TV in at least 30% of the games played. NFL Fans wouldn't show up for exhibition games if they weren't part of package and damn sure wouldn't if NFL teams were playing CFL teams. College FB and especially College BB is eroding the quality of its product at an alarming rate and as Ponyte points out students can watch a real game on TV

^this. I think there is a direct correlation between dying rivalries and attendance.that is why games for SMU vs TCU or name your favorite SWC team are important. Tradition. Nobody is interested in seeing their team pummel an opponent by 70 points. It is just not fun and you ultimately feel bad for the opposition subjecting themselves to that embarrassment.

Also, there is too much fighting for our attention. Social media, other games on tv, what our friends are doing, etc. I doubt you can shut down Boulevarding 30 minutes before kickoff (and I mean disburse people from loitering about), but just look at how many people sit around tailgating and do not go to the games. It is more social see and be seen than support your team. Sadly.

This is going to get blasted to be sure, but the declining rate of men attending college may have a role in this. UGA in particular has struggled over the last decade or so to attract men to the campus. The issue may be far more deep rooted in demographic changes than anything else. Attendance may be the symptom of a deep rooted problem.