Conference Attendance: a Double Shot of Reality
Attention all college presidents, AD's, and wussy coaches - I've got a deal for you.
Us fans will acknowledge the fact that in order to be prudent stewards of your college or university, sometimes you have to do what's fiscally sound (aka, schedule cupcakes in order to make money, get an easy win, and go to a bowl game). Sometimes.
But if we accept that, you have to acknowledge the fact that a lot of us fans think that despite the money, this is a cowardly and bullshit path that leads to uncompetitive games that none of us want to watch. (You can't ignore the fact that when playing non-BCS opponents your attendance drops an average of -14%, and when playing I-AA teams it drops an average of -22%.)
Deal?
| Non-conf games (2000-2008) | Home Games | Total Attendance | Average Attendance | Drop from Average | % Drop |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ACC vs BCS | 65 | 3,623,533 | 55,747 | ||
| ACC vs non-BCS | 88 | 4,512,727 | 51,281 | -4,465 | -8.0% |
| ACC vs I-AA | 53 | 2,673,821 | 50,449 | -5,297 | -9.5% |
| Big10 vs BCS | 62 | 4,562,836 | 73,594 | ||
| Big10 vs non-BCS | 130 | 9,299,744 | 71,536 | -2,057 | -2.8% |
| Big10 vs I-AA | 36 | 2,034,731 | 56,520 | -17,073 | -23.2% |
| Big12 vs BCS | 41 | 2,580,134 | 62,930 | ||
| Big12 vs non-BCS | 142 | 8,197,073 | 57,726 | -5,204 | -8.3% |
| Big12 vs I-AA | 66 | 3,184,454 | 48,249 | -14,680 | -23.3% |
| BigEast vs BCS | 53 | 2,614,131 | 49,323 | ||
| BigEast vs non-BCS | 90 | 3,580,581 | 39,784 | -9,538 | -19.3% |
| BigEast vs I-AA | 41 | 1,573,839 | 38,386 | -10,936 | -22.2% |
| CUSA vs BCS | 61 | 2,254,231 | 36,955 | ||
| CUSA vs non-BCS | 53 | 1,477,181 | 27,871 | -9,083 | -24.6% |
| CUSA vs I-AA | 49 | 1,339,694 | 27,341 | -9,613 | -26.0% |
| MAC vs BCS | 38 | 930,994 | 24,500 | ||
| MAC vs non-BCS | 32 | 594,874 | 18,590 | -5,910 | -24.1% |
| MAC vs I-AA | 82 | 1,511,589 | 18,434 | -6,065 | -24.8% |
| MtnWest vs BCS | 47 | 1,929,690 | 41,057 | ||
| MtnWest vs non-BCS | 60 | 2,183,753 | 36,396 | -4,661 | -11.4% |
| MtnWest vs I-AA | 37 | 1,163,088 | 31,435 | -9,622 | -23.4% |
| Pac10 vs BCS | 49 | 3,056,303 | 62,374 | ||
| Pac10 vs non-BCS | 98 | 4,843,257 | 49,421 | -12,952 | -20.8% |
| Pac10 vs I-AA | 26 | 1,169,157 | 44,968 | -17,405 | -27.9% |
| SEC vs BCS | 52 | 4,124,898 | 79,325 | ||
| SEC vs non-BCS | 169 | 12,529,826 | 74,141 | -5,183 | -6.5% |
| SEC vs I-AA | 57 | 3,730,076 | 65,440 | -13,885 | -17.5% |
| SunBelt vs BCS | 12 | 247,774 | 20,648 | ||
| SunBelt vs non-BCS | 40 | 738,810 | 18,470 | -2,177 | -10.5% |
| SunBelt vs I-AA | 42 | 709,942 | 16,903 | -3,744 | -18.1% |
| WAC vs BCS | 36 | 1,234,032 | 34,279 | ||
| WAC vs non-BCS | 59 | 1,670,569 | 28,315 | -5,963 | -17.4% |
| WAC vs I-AA | 48 | 1,222,606 | 25,471 | -8,807 | -25.7% |
Speaking of attendance, we seem to have found actual proof of a diving line between the haves and the have-nots. It's at about 36,000. (Note to the Mountain West fans - I know you want to be taken more seriously as a conference and be a part of the BCS, but in addition to winning more games against BCS competition, it wouldn't hurt if you'd start buying more tickets. Your 2008 average attendance was your lowest this decade...)
I'm just sayin'.
6 comments:
Cool analysis and graphs. Good work. Take your data to the conclusion though.
Many ADs at BCS conference member schools state that football has to pay the athletics department bills. Your analysis shows that those ADs are leaving money on the table. Or, to use economists' speak, they are not maximizing revenue.
If they believed their argument that football pays the bills, then those ADs would schedule more games against other BCS conference member schools.
Thanks, bevo. Scheduling cupcakes does make financial sense - but you've gotta add scheduling differences to attendance to see it.
Most BCS conference opponents insist on a home-and-home series, while a lot of non-BCS teams will settle for a one time game, or a one-and-two series (one game at the opponent, two at home). Games against I-AA cupcakes are always a one time game (the only teams that have traveled TO a I-AA opponent in the BCS era were from the SunBelt, and it's only happened 7 times).
So for example, Tennessee can schedule a home-and-home with UCLA, play two games, and have a total attendance (at their one home game) of around 100,000. Or they can schedule a two cupcakes, play two games, and have a total attendance of 160,000. So when it comes to raw attendance per game, scheduling cupcakes is going to get them more tickets sold overall, even though their per game average is going to be 20% lower.
Of course you've gotta add in how much they're paying the cupcake for that one game, usually in the neighborhood of hundreds of thousands of dollars (an amount which is increasing almost exponentially, incidentally). But even with such a payout, they're still gonna make more money.
These numbers are just a very rough guesstimate/example, but...
100,000 x $50 ticket = $5,000,000
160,000 x $50 ticket = $8,000,000 - two $500,000 payouts = $7,000,000
When universities and colleges are in penny-pinching mode, as they are now, the cupcakes' financial incentive can be too big to pass up.
Excellent analysis as usual.
A couple questions and a possible, though not certain, critique.
First, what was your source on attendance? Is there a database somewhere that tracked all this or did you just take attendance from individual boxscores and compile them?
Second, not only does attendance vary against lower-tier teams, but in many cases, the ticket prices do as well. This is not a hard and fast rule, and I'm sure the biggest programs don't adhere to it, but some of the marginal BCS conference teams will often charge a significantly reduced price on single game tickets when it is not a marquee opponent. I'm not positive how you would factor that in, but it seems like something worth considering if an AD were going to attempt a real NPV analysis.
Hey there Nathaniel, the attendance figures are from the NCAA's official records of the games, so (in theory) they should be more accurate than totals coming from the schools.
You bring up a good point about ticket prices being radically different too - in reality, schools probably lose more money (per game) playing cupcakes than my above example estimates. I would love to try to incorporate ticket prices, but just finding an accurate measure of them (especially the retroactive ones going back nearly ten years) is both nearly impossible and a bigger undertaking than I want to attempt.
If a school was really serious about focusing solely on revenue and maximizing profit, they could work up such a study, but it's tricky, mainly because even though higher-caliber make the number of fans/amount of $ go up, the chance of winning the game goes down. It seems that in the SEC it's not really that big of a deal for most teams - their fans are gonna show up whether they're 11-2 or 7-6. But in the Pac10, more losses would probably mean fewer fans, which means less money too. So it's a tricky balance that schools have to work with.
I really enjoy this article and of course learn more about the topic
It makes a lot of sense that they can schedule that kind of games to make money in an easy manner.
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