NCAA Football Attendance

Just a quick word on attendance. The link for 2003 Football Attendance is here:

www.ncaa.org/stats/football/attendance/2003/2003
footballattendance.pdf

In 2003, Tulane averaged 25,635- and I sort of believe that number.

Just for comparison:

Southern Miss 28,645
Northwestern 28,765
Wake Forest 28, 273
UAB 23,575
Rice 20,512
Duke 20,026
Navy 29,851
ULL 13,995
ULM 11,298

The point is:

1. Our attendance is not particularly out of line with rational expectations- if anything, we are “smaller” in terms of bodies- both on campus and living alumni within 100 miles- than those institutions.

2. I really don’t think there is a consistent crowd of 30,000+ out there for Tulane- pretty much not matter what we do. It is a chimera. If Louisville, a monster compared to Tulane, barely gets 40,000, then how are we going to draw 33,000.

There are 40 schools out there that average 50,000 plus- and most of them are monsters that we’ll never be able to emulate. Ohio State, Penn State, etc. have only literally about a million people that attended these schools. Point to one of those 40 universities that Tulane even vaguely resembles.

I think we all need to sort of face that this attendance level is all there is- maybe 3-5K more. It is just that 25,000 looks bad rattling around the Dome- but 30,000 looks good in a place like Papa John Stadium.