Your Call: Why Attendance Is Lagging

Again, before we get started here, I truly apologize for the inconvenience that came with canceling tonight’s PFN Live. My power is back on and, barring any further complete, epic fails of the electricity at my apartment complex, we’ll make it up tomorrow night at 8:00 PM AZ time.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled post.

We asked you a couple days ago why you weren’t going to ASU football games.

The drop in attendance has been noticeable and staggering. Average attendance between last year and this season so far has dropped by nearly 25%.

We got great response from you members of Pitchfork Nation to why you’re not going anymore or why you think Sun Devil and Valley sports fans are staying away from Sun Devil Stadium as if it were full of swine flu.

Many of you left interesting and thought-provoking comments on that original post and you can go back and read those for yourself. However, I wanted to take some time out to publish some of the responses we got at pitchforknation@gmail.com.

Many of them center around the same tenets: the majority of you are generally displeased with the state of the program, you resent ticket prices being raised in a down economy and coming off a bad season and some of you are just over the physical appearance of Sun Devil Stadium.

First up is David, a frequent and insightful commenter:

The stadium is a dump. Don’t compare it to other college football stadiums because that isn’t the competition for the discretionary dollar. Instead, compare SDS to the four sports palaces that exist in the Phoenix area (all of which opened in 1992 or later). When I’m at SDS I typically get a bench with the knees of the guy behind me being my seat back, and my knees doing the same for the guy in front of me. Getting into and out of the stadium is a nightmare - the entry/exit points are far too small to accomodate the crowds. The south end zone stands look like something out of high school field. The lines for the concessions and bathrooms are horrendous. I remember going to use the bathroom at the 1999 (I think) ASU/UA game and missing the last seven minutes of the first quarter and the first six minutes of the second quarter. The concession offerings are terrible and there is no alcohol served. The fact that much of the stadium is directly exposed to the sun doesn’t help. There is no feasible, fundable plan on the horizon to fix any of this.

Russell, a current student and more notably the guy who answered the call with his kick-ass Fear The Beard sign during the 2008-09 basketball season and subsequently will always be allowed to have a voice here on PFN, weighs in:

I am a devout Sun Devil senior who hasn’t missed a home game in my four years here.  I have traveled with the team many times, most recently to Georgia, and am one of those who will never miss a game, regardless.  However, with my core gaming friends graduated, I have found it difficult to convince friends to come with me.  The answer is common, staying home is one of the only ways fans can show their disappointment with the team.  ASU is full of knowledgeable fans of college football, some who love it so much that they’ll gladly stay home from an ASU game to watch a “more captivating” game on TV.  But
because many of ASU’s students aren’t native and have allegiances to other teams, it’s easy for them to stay home rather than come to a game.  It’s pretty much impossible for me to stay home, so maybe it’s a good thing that these folks do, cause I myself don’t know how to show my displeasure with this teams offense.

“tsub08″ says he knew this team would struggle and thinks most fans don’t want to sit through it:

Honestly, I think attendance is down because everybody knew that Danny Sullivan was going to be awful this year. I reluctantly renewed my season tickets after seeing him last season sparingly. Knowing that he was the front runner for the job I tried to tell myself that it would be OK but so far he as proved me right. I am a little disappointed in DE right now that he has not given Sullivan the quick hook based on the fact that he is making freshman mistakes and wasn’t even his recruit. As fair weather as some devils fans are if we are looking at a tough season most of them don’t show or just leave at halftime to drink away their sorrows. I’m one of the suckers that stays for the whole game hoping they might figure it out.

I wouldn’t call you a sucker, I’d call you hardcore. What say you, Jay, a SoCal resident who prefaced his reasons by saying that he still makes the drive from LA for every home game:

1) Overall economy. If it is not a lifestyle for you eliminating football games is an easy choice in these tough times.

2) Temperatures. This is a cop out. If those kids can practice and play in the high temperatures, we as fans can come out and support them. This year the temperatures (particularly against OSU) have been amazingly low.

3) Stadium amenities. The bench seats (many with no backs) are uncomfortable to sit on. I think at a minimum backs need to be installed and even at the risk of reducing seating capacity (which may be a good thing) individual seats should be considered. In addition the restrooms are just plain hot and disgusting and need immediate upgrades.

4) Quality of play and competition with professional sports. It is a reality that there is only so much time and money to go around and there are many athletic venues available for people to spend theirs. If ASU football consistently put out a team that was capable of competing for the PAC-10 title I think they would have a larger fan base.

5) Lack of Culture. I think this trumps everything else. ASU just does not have the lifestyle or culture that creates a rabid fan base that you get in other areas of the country. I think part of this can be contributed to the strict tailgating rules. In addition college sports is the only game in town in many areas of the country and therefore you have a built in fan base.  Winning can help build this culture!

Winning cures all, that’s for sure. Kyle thinks the student section, which has been packed to the brim for every game over the past 2+ seasons give or take, should be expanded:

A reason that hasn’t been addressed is that there aren’t enough student section seats available and they raised the price of student seats 30 percent this off-season. To my knowledge ASU reserves 8,000 seats for students, which percentage wise makes just over 10 percent of the seats are devoted to students. This is lower than any percentage in the Pac-10, except for USC, but USC still devotes over 10000 seats in a stadium over 100,000. Also they’re student body is about half the size of ASU’s.

Anyway, the student section has been sold out every year, and every home game the student section has been full this year, at least in the beginning. The complaints of students leaving early holds no water, because adult fans have been leaving just as early.

The students will buy tickets and give ASU a real home field advantage. ASU should sell 12,000 season seats and stretch student seating around the end zone, rather than in the second deck. The students buy the tickets and show up, which is more than can be said for most especially this year. Also jumping ticket prices from $99 to $129 in a bad economy with rising student fees was stupid, but enough students have still shown up to sell it out.

I will try to confirm exactly how many student season tickets are available at the start of every season for you. Brandon says:

The attendance issue is a direct reflection of the types of fans we have in Arizona.  Many people did not grow up here.  If they did, their parents did not grow up here.  Thus, there is a serious lack of tradition for AZ sports in general (not just ASU).  Without this tradition, all we are left with is a fan base where the majority are fair weather fans.  I guarantee you that if ASU had had a better season last year, our attendance would be closer to what is was last year.  And to those complaining about ticket prices, I also guarantee that they would have found a way to pay if the team was better.

They say ASU is a sleeping giant.  I tend to disagree.  To become an elite Pac-10 school, you need to recruit elite players.  Elite players tend to favor schools that are well supported by fans because that results in a better home field advantage and provides more money for the program.

Everyone brings up very excellent points and I appreciate all of your responses.

I think the key here is that ASU, regardless of it’s heritage and place in the long term history of Valley sports, still needs to win to get fans into the building.

It’s true for the Suns, Cardinals, Diamondbacks and…uh…Coyotes…kind of. It’s human nature to not want to pay good money to see a team that isn’t winning and, unfortunately, I don’t think the casual fans of ASU football will come until the team begins to win again.

Think of it this way though: at least we’re not the only ones who suffer through this syndrome. Even at a powerhouse like USC, fans didn’t show up when the team struggled.

In Pete Carroll’s first year in 2001, before this current string of ridiculous success, the Trojans only drew crowds of more than 50,000 at LA Coliseum twice: once for visiting 12th ranked Kansas State and once for the rivalry game with USC.

Listen. The choice is yours on whether or not you’re going to head out to the stadium to see this team. I can cry and scream all day about how true fans support the team through thick and thin but it will not change the idea that tickets are tough to justify paying for right now, especially when the team is struggling.

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