Attendance lags put SEC on offense

[dcpony]

ESTIN, Fla. -- You know, this college football thing is really starting to catch on in the Southeastern Conference.

Some numbers to back that up:

• Last season, with the addition of two new members (Missouri, Texas A&M), the SEC set an all-time attendance record with a total of 7,478,304 fans who attended games in the conference's 14 stadiums.

• The SEC had an average attendance of 75,538 fans per game, which led the nation for the 15th consecutive year.

• Six of the top 11 schools in average attendance come from the SEC (Alabama, Georgia, LSU, Tennessee, Florida, Texas A&M). Only 18 schools average more than 80,000 per game. Eight of those are from the SEC.

But as coaches and administrators gather here for the SEC's annual spring meetings, one of their greatest concerns is the future of college football attendance.

That's right.

"It's a real issue," said Jeremy Foley, the athletics director at Florida. "A confluence of things is coming together and the world has changed. We have to change with it."

While the SEC led all conferences in average attendance per game last season, that figure has actually gone down for four consecutive seasons after reaching a high of 76,844.

http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootbal ... experience

[leopold]

Expect it to continue to go down.

Overpriced tickets
100+ or 10- temperature
Raining, snowing, sleeting, suns in your eyes
Traffic
Wait in line for the bathroom
Overpriced unappealing stadium food
No alcohol sold but yet drunks everywhere
God knows who you have to sit next to
You have to sit through a blowout



Obviously, that's why the Boulevard is so popular. It may be that future ticket sales, not only at SMU but elsewhere, are dependant on offering something other than the game as the main attraction, regardless of the team.