With fall fast approaching we turn to analyses of football. Since high school football
is played on Friday nights, college on Saturdays, and the NFL on Sundays, we follow
that order of presentation and let the big boys headline the publication of findings.
Visit FanWide.com to find a NCAA Football game watch party or fan club near you.
Overall, college football has yielded a trend of declining game interest across a
variety of indicators. Total attendance across all tracked Division I teams (N = 254)
has declined from 43,986,352 in 2013 to 41,284,179 in 2017, or 74.7% of total
stadium capacity to 71.7%. Average attendance has also decreased in that period
from 27,507 to 26,362 as has median attendance (17,492 in 2013 to 16,567 in
2017).
Week over week variance increased from 2013 to 2016, but suddenly dropped
below 2013 levels in 2017. It’s too soon to know whether last year’s dip is in
inflection point of bucking the trend, but if variance stays low as attendance
continues to decline, this suggests that even popular teams are having trouble
drawing a crowd and not even experiential luxury is enough of a draw. With
increasing coverage of CTE and brain injury as a result of football, sports fans may
be turning their attention elsewhere. If an examination of NFL football yields similar
declines there may be a fair amount of truth to this hypotheses. Stay tuned for our
next post about the attendance performance of individual NCAA football teams.
NCAAF ATTENDANCE
| Year | Attendance | Capacity | Attendance % | Average | Standard Deviation | Minimum | Median | Variance |
| 2013 | 43,986,352 | 58,894,065 | 74.69% | 27,509 | 26,618.4 | 0 | 17,492 | 709,000,000 |
| 2014 | 43,467,801 | 58,416,116 | 74.41% | 27,167 | 26,721.3 | 0 | 17,247 | 714,000,000 |
| 2015 | 42,381,834 | 56,954,457 | 74.41% | 27,220 | 27,160.3 | 0 | 17,444 | 738,000,000 |
| 2016 | 41,860,825 | 58,035,626 | 72.13% | 26,834 | 27,333.3 | 0 | 16,883 | 747,000,000 |
| 2017 | 41,284,179 | 57,565,190 | 71.72% | 26,363 | 26,528.3 | 0 | 16,567 | 704,000,000 |
The NFL preseason has started, and the college football season is only a few weeks away, so be sure to check out a FanWide game watch party at a local bar or restaurant.