Really good win today! Only disappointment was the student side. Ridiculously few kids in the stands compared to Homecoming Saturday!
Student side attendance was - Not....
Athletic dept needs to step up marketing to students....gonna need more of 'em for the coming midweek games....
The student attendance has been good this season until today.
Attendance for today was 16,000 lower than some of the midweek games. Weather was good so its somewhat surprising. The amount of students on campus is lower than what it was 5-10 years ago so that could have some effect.
The students were here for some of the other games, so what was going on 5–10 years ago can’t be much of an influence, I wouldn’t think
The sheer amount of students was 3,000-4,000 higher than the 14,000 or so that are on campus now. If half go to the game that is 1,500-2,000 less per game than at the height of students in Athens.
You’re not getting what I’m saying. More students were at the Akron and FAU games. They weren’t there for the NIU game, if the ones who came to those other games showed up, it would have been good. They didn’t . If it was just student enrollment, those other games would have had low student attendance as well. Those attending students didn’t drop out in the last 2 weeks, just chose to not attend for some reason. We’re trying to figure out why not.
I'm making an independent point thinking about the attendance by comparing it to the past. In 2022 Ohio has 23,000 for homecoming in Athens. In 2015 at the height of attendance Ohio has 25,000 for homecoming. In 2015 there were 3,000 to 4,000 more students in Athens so in light of that 2022 numbers aren't bad at all. Last year's attendance for Syracuse was just under 24,000 which is also about 2,000 of the high. In the 90's the all time high was 20,000 and I pointed out at least at that time the alumni base was still growing. That rings true for Ohio until the end of the decade but its leveling off.
Anyways after looking it up on ohiobobcats.com BTC is largely right that the last weekend game in October usually doesn't draw very well for whatever reason and sometimes is out drawn by the first midweek home game.
One other observation is having P5's or higher level G5's in Athens does a lot for fan interest. The Marshall series from 2010-15 coincided with strong numbers and of course the undefeated start in 2012. Attendance started to drop off in 2016 with Marshall off the schedule.