Louisiana Football Attendance & "The Money Tree"

[JMV JustMyView]

I was thinking about the point that Vic has made a couple times with the possibility of Maggard being given access to "the money tree", not showing returns in a few key areas (football attendance, RCAF fundraising, etc.), and having the funding eventually pulled. First: I'd like to say I'm not necessarily challenging Vic's contention. I have no idea if this actually happened. I'd just like to point out the reasons why this logic, if used as rationale to cut funding, was somewhat shortsighted, at least in terms of football attendance. I looked up attendance figures for the last 6 seasons (throwing out the Covid year):

2021: 3/6 Saturday home games; total attendance 126,440; average 21,073; SBC championship game not considered

2019: 5/6 Saturday home games; total attendance 104,978; average 17,496

2018: 6/6 Saturday home games; total attendance 111,303; average 18,551; this includes the opening home game against Grambling with attendance of 28,866

2017: 4/5 Saturday home games; total attendance 78,754; average 15,751

2016: 5/6 Saturday home games; total attendance 121,346; average 20,224; home games against Boise State & McNeese

2015: 6/6 Saturday home games; total attendance 129,577; average 21,596; this season's average was saved by a 22k+ crowd on Senior Day for a 4-7 team

Adding in the SBC title game for last year would put 2021 as the highest attendance season. This was with one of the worst home schedules imaginable with only 3 Saturday home games. The 2021 season saw a 20%+ increase in average attendance over 2019, a 13%+ increase in average attendance over 2018 (again this year was aided by 6 Saturday home games and a game where a significant portion of attendance was not Cajun fans), and a 33.8% increase over 2017. I fully understand the attendance is nothing like we would have liked to see. 21k average attendance for the most successful team in school history still stinks, but when you consider the whole picture, we seemed to be headed in the right direction.

Nice work.

[Turbine]

Game was on Espn2

Right, and Louisiana drew almost a half million for the last game that was on ESPN3 against a lesser known national opponent. Whilst an MLB playoff game was on

On ESPN2 against a better known opponent only 200G.

What do you think accounts for that?

[fanof71]

I have no idea..... viewing numbers are mathematically extrapolated... and they are average viewing over a 2 hour plus window... it is what it is... and, you never know what sports programming is airing as well..

[CajunVic]

MLB Playoffs?

[CajunNation]

Right, and Louisiana drew almost a half million for the last game that was on ESPN3 against a lesser known national opponent. Whilst an MLB playoff game was on

On ESPN2 against a better known opponent only 200G.

What do you think accounts for that?

NFL

Baltimore and Tamp Bay played that night. Thursday night college games are the worst for exposure. Every bar in America has the NFL game on.