Ah, Sunderland wins their first title! Joining Preston North End (2) and Everton as Football League champions. The first division (1892-1992) began play that fall. # England Titles at WWI suspension: Aston Villa (6), Sunderland (5), Newcastle (3), PNE (2), Everton (2), Wednesday (2), ManU (2), Liverpool (2), Blackburn (2). At WWII pause: Villa (6), Sunderland (6), Arsenal (5), Everton (5), Wednesday (4), Liverpool (4), Newcastle (4), Huddersfield (3). At First Division close (1992): Liverpool (18), Arsenal (10), Everton (9), Aston Villa (7), ManU (7), Sunderland (6), Sheffield Wednesday (4), Newcastle (4), Wolverhamton (3), Huddersfield (3), Leeds (3). Now: ManU (20), Liverpool (18), Arsenal (13), Everton (9), Aston Villa (7), Sunderland (6), Chelsea (6), Manchester City (6), Newcastle (4), Sheffield Wednesday (4).
Announced crowd of 18,158 (71% capacity) for the 2019 FBC Mortgage Cure Bowl at Exploria Stadium. #CFB (https://t.co/keKXOJWb8P + https://t.co/ImvMunFruR + https://t.co/qB3Uo0zma5 + https://t.co/36vOG8oYeo) pic.twitter.com/YZns3z5jKu— Empty Seats Galore (@EmptySeatsPics) December 21, 2019 Bowl game fever.... catch it!
Something that is underestimated about NCAA games in general is how many are played for TV and not for butts in seats. The prime example, the NCAA basketball tournament. Look at the opening rounds, there are a lot of empty seats. Another example, this year's Pac-12 football championship. An important game played near San Francisco between Utah and Washington, the top tier was closed and the bottom was not full.
The emerging nationalization and obsession with neutral site games notwithstanding, in the regions where college football is king, it’s the highest attended sport on planet earth.
100K+ is large compared to most ball sports, but I was pretty sure Auto racing had much higher attendance. Sure enough, a quick search of F1 turned up "British Grand Prix alone had 351,000."
Looked through pretty quickly and a lot of comparisons with College and Pro football. But this leagues aren't really comparable due to the very limited amount of games necessitated by the pure brutality of the sport. But whether football, baseball, there needs to be some compelling reason to for interest - and ideally the more reasons the better. Some include: Rivalry - look at Cincy vs Crew: two bad teams but invested crowds. UCLA vs USC women's volleyball will likely draw a good crowd. Championships - The more a game impacts the championship, the more people will watch. NCAA basketball tournament is a perfect example, College teams with players that wouldn't be the start of many High school teams get massive ratings. Environment & tradition - Cubs and Red Sox didn't win a championship in decades but teams played in packed stadiums year after year. College sports are good examples as well. Star players (and villains ) - Labron and the Ball bros. helped sell out large venues as high school players. But one that was only briefly mentioned is how Liga Mx will impact schedule. The league has made it really clear that by 2026 games with Liga Mx teams will significantly impact the schedule. The single table is nice for European purists, but it doesn't really drive ratings. Playoffs in English Championship are not "pure," but they make the league far more compelling that without them. Finally, if people are worried missing games against big teams now, just wait for when the top teams will be more and more focused on match-ups with Mexican teams. The days of MLS getting rolled over are long gone. When CCL did seedings based on results one of the 4 Mexican slots got relegated before the 5 MLS slots did. Not only that, in the past 3 years many top South American players have been diverted to MLS and In the past few two years some top level Mexican players are getting transferred to MLS. This is where the league is planning to drive TV ratings and revenue growth.
One thing to consider is that British fans only get one F1 race per year. The attendance might not be that high if they got five or ten per year. The British Grand Prix was it Silverstone Circuit, which has 18 turns and laps of 3.66 miles. To compare, NASCAR uses mostly ovals of 2.5 miles or shorter, with Talladega, Alabama having the longest tract at 2.66 miles. The Wikipedia page for the track says it has a capacity of 150,000. The page for the 2019 British Grand Prix says the attendance was 351,000 for "race weekend" and 141,000 for "race." There are qualifying and practice before the race. If I had to make an analogy for race and race weekend, it would be for presidential conventions. In 2016, the Democratic National Convention and Republican National Convention were both 4 days, so the total attendance if they kept track and added the days to get a total would be higher than the amount of people who could fit at one time. Another factor is that it has the best drivers in the world at that form of racing like golf majors have. Even if a sport has most of the best players in the world playing for American teams, very few or no games except for an All-Star Game would have a quarter of the top 50 or 100 players. If USA hosted a game with the best Premier League and Bundesliga players against the best La Liga and Serie A players and the best players played and tried their best, it wouldn't be fair to compare the interest in that to MLS regular season games.
The early rounds in March Madness used to be sold as one giant, four-game block on day one, then a two-game block on day two. I attended a few, and even with the best intentions it was difficult to stay for all four games. The NCAA then switched to two two-game sessions on day one, and that's an easier ask, but it is still like double headers in soccer where one ticket is for both games yet fans don't often stay for both games. (Still primarily for TV, absolutely.) Spokane is again host for the opening rounds in 2020, with University of Idaho (where I work) the host school. It overlaps with our Spring Break so I may volunteer to help work it this time around (we also hosted the Men's tourney in 2016 and the Women's in 2018).
I went to my first NCAA Tournament game last year. I like Florida State, who rarely plays in or near New York City. I considered seeing them in the 2018 ACC Tournament at Barclays Center, but I was happy I didn't go because they played poorly. In 2019, I went to Hartford for the NCAA Tournament Second Round, and it was expensive to sit very high up. Before the game, I ate at Anna's in East Hartford for the second time, and the first time was when I saw USA beat Costa Rica in the Gold Cup, albeit we walked out as Brek Shea scored the only goal of the game. I would have wanted to stay for both games if they started earlier, but staying for the second game would have required a hotel. I saw Florida State beat Murray State in Ja Morant's last NCAA game and stayed until the first timeout of Purdue vs. Villanova to see two-time champion Coach Jay Wright. After the game, I got in a photo with Florida State's band, which I wouldn't have gotten if I stayed for the second game. The NCAA Tournament had a great ending as I made money for the third time. My bracket was in the 96.5th percentile on ESPN.
Plus, the March Madness games in the first round are sold on as little as 4 days notice. /Went to my first ever NCAA tournament games for the Sweet 16 of the Women's tournament last spring. Fun atmosphere, but having Notre Dame play in Chicago helped a lot.