Quote:
Originally Posted by Otto
Since the 1989 season, which is when the Florida streak started, the Gators have averaged 79,026 fans per home game. Nebraska has averaged 77,162 during this same time frame. This is directly related to Florida having more seats to fill on Saturdays in Gainseville than Nebraska has in Lincoln. The SEC dominates the Top 12 (expanded by two to include Auburn and Nebraska) with six teams in this category. The Big 10, which boast the three biggest stadiums in college football, take the top three spots of this list, with the Big 12 coming in with two teams (UT and NU) and the Pac 10 with one (talk about bandwagon fans in USC).
I was going to write a lot more about Florida and Nebraska, but after doing some comparisons, it's really hard to make a case about Florida. Sure, they average 90,000+ fans on Saturdays, more than 2,000 the capacity. However, for the last two seasons, Nebraska has averaged more than 4,000 over capacity per home game. After looking at some statistics, I agree with DF that Florida's recent success has caused a lot of bandwagon fans - all of the top 10 all-time best attendances at Ben Hill Griffin have happened since the 2005 season (with 7 of those coming since their 2006 national championship season - not including this season). Of course, stadiums grow every year, so this would only be natural, but the stadium was expanded in 2003. And given the suspicious 2004 season's 88,409 season average with a capacity of 88,548, I would be curious how that home sellout streak was maintained - were these sold tickets (which include scalpers and ticket agencies) or actual attendance?
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C'mon, jibi, don't get me in more trouble! It wasn't me who said "Florida bandwagon fans."
One more bit of information in comparing Florida and Nebraska attendance though - I think its rather noteworthy to also look at it in relation to the area population, and if you do that Nebraska jumps WAY out on top, almost unbelievably so. The population of the entire state of Nebraska in 2008 was 1,783,432 per the U.S. Census Bureau. The population of Florida at the same time was 18,328,340, over 10 times as large. Now I know that the Florida fans are going to say its not fair to look at the whole state, so lets just look at the major cities within 150 miles or less:
Metro Gainesville: 257,099
Metro Jacksonville: 1,313,228
Metro Orlando: 2,045,322
Metro Tallahassee: 353,425
Metro Tampa/St. Pete: 2,723,949
So, counting only major metro areas within 150 miles or less of the stadium, there are more than 6,693,023 people. (Some of the towns in Nebraska - like my home town - are over 450 miles from Husker's stadium.) In otherwords, within 150 miles of The Swamp there are close to 4 times as many people as in the entire state of Nebraska - meaning that by percentage of population, the attendance at Husker games is
dramatically larger- not to mention the dramatically longer sellout streak. To have the same level/degree of fan support from their local area that the Huskers enjoy, the Gators would have to have a stadium of 304,235 and be selling it out on a continuous basis.
(Oh, and for iam4uf and Milk - I'm talking about right now, today!)
