Since I decided to wrap up the previous 2012 college soccer attendance thread (AKA the 2011 college soccer attendance thread) I figured it would be a good time to start a new one that actually discussed the 2012 attendance since the first game of the season will start later today. Here are some of the scheduled games - weather permitting- that have a shot to get 7K: UCLA at Maryland 8/31 Kentucky at Louisville 9/14 UCLA at UCSB 9/21 fox Virginia Tech at Maryland 9/21 UC Irvine at UCSB 9/28 Virginia at Maryland 10/5 fox St Johns at Louisville 10/13 fox North Carolina at Maryland 10/19 Cal Poly at UCSB 10/19 fox Stanford at UCSB 10/26 UCSB at Cal Poly 11/3 Clemson at South Carolina should be good for 6K but I'm not sure SC can fit in 7K. Also Creighton and Akron should have several games each good for at least 5K. Am I missing any? Also last year the top 50 total attendance leader totaled 824,036. Given that the top 7 programs which drove the total are all expected to do well again this year and thus get a lot of home conference and NCAA playoff games, I think there is a reasonable shot of exceeding that number this year. As usual, a lot depends on the weather. If you get some windy, cold, wet weather on the wrong weekend nights then 2011 will be out of reach. But if the weather cooperates, I think it could be an even better year.
The UCSB/UCLA match at UCSB on Fox Soccer Channel should be a sellout (17,000). If you've never been to a UCSB home match and live in SoCal, consider coming out. UCSB atheltics has already been promoting it:
Actually the UCSB vs. UCLA game probably won't be a sell out because freshmen won't be moving in until the next day. The schedule was made assuming freshmen would be moved in already, but due to the date of New Years move in weekend was a week later. I heard some dorms are opening up earlier to try to help this issue, but not all are and UCLA didn't want to change the date. New Freshmen are a huge reason for opening weekend bumps in attendance.
It might only interest me, but year-by-year attendance relative to tier milestones: 2001: >1000: 16 >1500: 8 >2000: 6 >2500: 1 2002: >1000: 21 >1500: 8 >2000: 3 >2500: 1 2003: >1000: 21 >1500: 9 >2000: 5 >2500: 1 2004: >1000: 22 >1500: 9 >2000: 5 2005: >1000: 21 >1500: 10 >2000: 5 >2500: 3 >3000: 2 >3500: 1 2006: >1000: 24 >1500: 13 >2000: 9 >2500: 4 2007: >1000: 29 >1500: 16 >2000: 11 >2500: 4 >3000: 2 2008: >1000: 25 >1500: 12 >2000: 7 >2500: 5 >3000: 2 2009: >1000: 27 >1500: 13 >2000: 7 >2500: 2 >3000: 2 >3500: 1 >4000: 1 2010: >1000: 30 >1500: 16 >2000: 12 >2500: 7 >3000: 4 >3500: 1 >4000: 1 >5000: 1 2011: >1000: 29 >1500: 15 >2000: 11 >2500: 7 >3000: 6 >3500: 5 >4000: 1 So, in 2001, there were 16 programs averaging over 1k and just 1 averaging 2500. As recently as 2004, there were just 22 programs over 1000, 5 over 2000, and none over 2500. Last year, there were six programs averaging over 3k.
Greg Auman @gregauman Fox Soccer shows USF men's soccer attendance vs. Michigan tonight as 3,076, regular-season record for Corbett. More for New Mexico in NCAAs.
Penn State vs. Stanford women tonight in State College PA drew over 5,000 ... great game ... Stanford won 3-2. http://www.gopsusports.com/sports/w-soccer/psu-w-soccer-body.html
I think your numbers show that while the bottom end is slowly improving, a couple of programs at the top have become regular events at their schools.
Not really. That would be about average for the past couple of year and below average for a Friday night. Part of their problem is Drake is a terrible venue to watch the games as the primary stands aren't near the field.
Looks like St Louis got 5K crowd. S.Florida had 3K and Elon had almost 4K. Anyone else have an much larger crowd than you would think?
I don't think the students are back in school yet at UCLA, so that may explain the worse than average for a Friday night part.
I've updated the 2011 spreadsheet to include 2012 results. It's an open spreadsheet so anyone can update it. Please feel free to update: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0As6qRic5UaY9dFRoT0xSTlVBdlV0bE03UmZCWFBxRXc
Gardner-Webb @ UNC last Saturday had 4,230 Notes: -Game was also on ESPN3 -There were some tributes to Kirk Urso -Last year UNC set 2 attendance records (for men's matches, at least; the women still own most of Fetzer Field records) against Duke then again against St. Mary's (which was around 5,800 I think)
Charlotte vs Denver @ Charlotte (25August) - 1,818 Charlotte vs Coastal Carolina @ Charlotte (27August) - 1,744
UConn vs. St. Francis had a sellout -- 5100 -- this past Saturday. Have to expect they'll have a couple more 5k+ games.