A few theories:
These are my top 5 reasons why college football attendance is dwindling:
- The death of regional games and rivalries. Too many schools are now in conferences that make no geographic sense. Having gone to Arizona State, seeing annual games with the LA, Bay Area, Oregon & Washington schools replaced w/ conference games against schools from Kansas, Texas, Florida, Ohio and West Virginia doesn’t resonate. This is being felt everywhere.
- Conference imbalance. We now have a world where the Big Ten and SEC are inherently favored for earning CFP bids and higher rankings before each season begins. The ACC and Big 12 are Tier 2 leagues, and the G6 schools are essentially in a separate class. This has produced an uneven, biased landscape that is entirely unfair.
- Noise pollution. I go to college football games to tailgate, watch football and listen to marching bands – not for blaring music and sound effects, hyperventilating PA announcers, and flashing light shows. The environment has been degraded.
- Expanded College Football Playoff. We’ve entered an era where if your school isn’t contending for a CFP bid, it’s playing out the string.
- The transfer portal. Annual free agency has many schools turning over rosters by more than 50-75%. The connections between players and fans has greatly eroded. Most fans can’t name 10 guys on their teams any more. That’s not ideal.
The sport needs more stability, the return of regional conferences, better game day atmospheres, and a more level playing field.
I’m of two minds about the recent changes, some of which have been good and some of which are obviously bad. First, I have to admit that I’m an NFL fan, not a college football fan. I do support the Golden Gophers, but very casually, and I haven’t attended a game since 1978. I’m not apologizing for refusing to attend games at the Metrodome; a worse atmosphere for college football would probably require a stadium built on the Moon.
The initial College Football Playoff and the inauguration of NIL were great and led to increased competitiveness inside and across the conferences. It was never good when Nebraska was beating Missouri 97-0 because the third-string offensive linemen for Nebraska were better than Missouri’s starters.
I think the problem is the superconferences and the short-sighted money people being too involved. Hopefully the pendulum will swing back in favor of tradition soon, before it is too late. That being said, I’ve watched more college football in the last two years than in the previous 30.