February 23, 2010 · 5:54 AM

Less derrieres in the seats in 2009

The NCAA has published attendance figures for college football’s 2009 season, and, surprisingly, SEC attendance fell slightly from the previous season, despite the fact that Mississippi State led all Division I schools in average attendance increase from 2008 (+10,339).

The culprits for the slide?

  • Tennessee, down 2,228
  • Alabama, down 126
  • Auburn, down 2,301
  • South Carolina, down 5,160
  • Arkansas, down 3,628
  • Vanderbilt, down 3,445

No doubt there are a variety of reasons for those figures, with the economic downturn being the most significant, I would think.  (As for the rest of the conference, Georgia was unchanged, Florida, Kentucky and LSU were slightly up and Mississippi had a healthy bounce of about 5%.)

Overall, it was the first drop in overall attendance for college football in five years.

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7 Comments

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7 responses to “Less derrieres in the seats in 2009”

  1. RedCrake
    February 23, 2010 at 8:33 AM

    I’m guessing that scheduling directional cupcakes may have really hurt some of the schools on the “down” list, while we really only had one (Tennessee Tech).

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  2. JasonC
    February 23, 2010 at 8:42 AM

    Surprising to see Bama on that list.

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  3. MikeInValdosta
    February 23, 2010 at 8:59 AM

    I think both Tennessee and Bama had some sections closed due to construction.

    I am positive Alabama did. They will be opening up new capacity this season.

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  4. Bob
    February 23, 2010 at 9:00 AM

    SC put in a new ticket donation system that hurt attendance. Timing it during this recession was smart too.

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  5. BeerMoney
    February 23, 2010 at 11:34 AM

    This has a lot to do with the schedules. For example, Miss St. had arguably the most attractive (and toughest home schedule) last year with LSU, Ole Miss, Florida, Alabama at home along with OOC against surprises GT and Houston. Vanderbilt had a great schedule in ’08 and again ’10, but not so much in ’09. Auburn has a great home schedule in even numbered years and absolutely disgraceful in odd ones. And so on…

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  6. BogeyDawg
    February 23, 2010 at 1:31 PM

    I wish actual attendance was published and tracked instead of tickets sold. I was in Athens for a couple games last year and attendance was near 90k.

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