[NU Sports] Definitive College Football attendance study

[Beamsley, Jeff]

Here's another version that hopefully will be easier to read.

After taking a run at Dennis' claim that winning conference
championships was the one and only thing that affects college football
attendance, I thought I would do a little more research to see if anyone
else had actually done a rigorous analysis of the data.


Someone at Harvard did and earlier this year posted a very interesting
article.

http://harvardsportsanalysis.wordpress.com/2011/01/17/what-factors-contribute-to-attendance-in-college-football/

As it turns out, you don't have to win championships, although those
that do so do get rewarded.  Having just a winning percentage over a
number of years has the highest correlation to attendance.  Attendance
is a trailing indicator lagging performance by about a year for both
positive and negative changes.  


Here are the other factors that significantly correlate to attendance
over the three year period of this study.  Those of you on this list who
have thrown out one or more of these factors in our past discussions
about attendance can now feel free to pat yourselves on the back.


BCS conference participation
BCS schools average 61K/game. Non-BCS average 24K/game


Undergraduate population
Schools >40K undergrads average 91% capacity (69K/game).  
Schools between 30K-40K undergrads average 84% capacity (54K/game).  
Schools between 10K-20K undergrads average 73.2% capacity.  
Schools <10K undergrads average 77% capacity.


Proximity to large cities (access to pro sports)
100K-500K population average 83.7% capacity
500K-1M population average 83% capacity
1M-4M population average 75% capacity
4M+ population average 70% capacity


Private versus Public
Private averages 76.5% capacity
Public averages 80.5% capacity


On this last point they attribute the differences to four factors.


1. Public schools are less geographically diverse and so create stronger
generational state and school loyalty.
2. Private schools are smaller (on average half the size of public
schools).  So there are fewer undergrads and alumni to draw from.
3. The average private school is located in a 3M+ city with 2+ pro
teams.  The average public school is located in a 1M+ city with 1 pro
team.


So what does this mean for NU?
Three years of winning football has resulted in growing attendance as
predicted (77% of capacity in 2010).  We are part of the BCS, but we are
averaging 24K/game less than the average BCS school.  We are right on
target for a school with an undergrad population under 10K.  We are a
little better than predicted for a private school near a 1M-4M city.  


Bottom line is that according to this study, NU has many more challenges
as far as football attendance than the rest of our BT brothers.  The bad
news is that key parts of who we are as a school will likely prevent us
from ever approaching the 61K/game BCS average.   The good news is that
savvy marketing and consistent on-field performance already have us
beating the average attendance of schools facing similar challenges.



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