Game attendance numbers

There's been a lot of doomsaying about half-empty stadiums if BYU fails to bring big names into LES, either by way of better scheduling or conference invite. I thought I'd see if there's any empirical truth to those claims. I decided to mainly look at the recent bad years. 2006-2009 was pretty consistent in terms of full or mostly full stadiums.



I've graded the opponents for reference.

A = any BCS team with some semblance of history, non-BCS teams that finished highly ranked, notable rivals (although I didn't include Utah, that game will always be well attended)

B = decent non-AQs, any MWC team that finished with 7+ wins

C = bad FBS non-AQ teams

D = any FCS team



2002

Syracuse (A) 65,612

Hawaii (A) 63,085

UNLV (C) 62,543

SDSU (C) 59,362

Wyo. (C) 61,689

UNM (B) 60,764



2003

Georgia Tech (A) 61,930

Stanford (A) 61,446

AF (B) 62,210

CSU (B) 46,778

Boise State (A) 46,778



2004

Notre Dame (A) 65,251

USC (A) 63,467

UNLV (C) N/A (couldn't find the number anywhere)

Wyoming (C) 58,737

SDSU (C) 53,435

UNM (B) N/A (ditto)



2005

BC (A) 58,108

E. Illinois (D) 52,630

TCU (A) 58,320

Wyom. (C) 58,165

AF (C) 57,687



2010

Washington (A) 63,771

Nevada (A) 61,471

SDSU (B) 62,176

Wyoming (C) 60,505

UNLV (C) 61,283

UNM (C) 59,077



Bad teams on good years: BYU played 2 FCS teams in 2006-2009. They were:

2007 E. Wash. 64,522

2008 N. Iowa 64,108

NIU had the benefit of being the season opener. EWU was mid-season.



Observations -

- Most of BYU's A-graded match-ups came early in the season, which generally assures better attendance.

- However, even those can be hampered by bad seasons - Bronco could only draw 58,000 to his career opener vs. an AQ foe, probably attributable to Crowton's last 3 seasons.

- The only time BYU has had a late-season matchup with a truly great team on a bad year is 2003 BSU, which only drew 46,000 people. That number looks strange to me, especially since it's identical to the game before, but cougarstats.com verified it. For the record, it was a very cold, snowy day.

- Finally, this doesn't consider a lot of factors like weather and time that do affect attendance - Both 2010 UNLV and 2010 UNM were bad teams being played late-season, but one was a day game and the other was played on a particularly cold evening, and you have an attendance difference of over 2,000.



Conclusion: People will go to see BYU play bad teams if BYU is playing well. People will not go to see BYU play good teams if BYU is playing poorly. I think once you get out of a very small group of schools (rivals, geographically or culturally relevant teams like USC or Hawaii, or storied programs like ND or Ohio State) people aren't going to pay to watch BYU get rolled out.

2003 CSU and Boise State games were both Thursday night games and it was a blizzard for both games. The attendance reflected our level of play: sucky.

Does BYU report paid attendance or actual attendance?

Heck, everybody will come to those lousy C or D games in hopes of seeing some scoring; may not happen, but these 2.5 TD games are getting real boring.

Mingjai wrote:
Does BYU report paid attendance or actual attendance?

Paid and actual. The numbers you see are normally paid attendance (being the higher one). They keep actual for their records. Apparently if you miss 4 home games in a row, you are considered less-active. (Sorry, I couldn't resist ;) )



I remember a few years ago when we had the "nations longest sellout streak" that they would announce every game, and looking out and seeing at least 2 thousand seats empty every single time.



"That's another sellout crowd, ladies and gentleman, putting it at x straight games. Congratulations and yadda yadda. "

If you analyze attendance when BYU is expected to have a good season and has ot lost yet - i.e. they are still relevant - or any time BYU is in the Top 15, I am gong to guess that attendance iw pretty good no matter whose butt we are kicking. And yes, you roll in a storied program in a year where we have a shot to win - sell out.