Attendance averages for MVFC, MAC and Sun Belt

[TheBisonator]

Hey all, I was thinking that we could start a thread to keep track of how the MVFC does in attendance compared to the two lowest FBS leagues this season. I personally think with a few stadium upgrades to a few teams, the MVFC could realistically consider a jump to FBS, but of course I think that's probably up to 10 years in the future. One thing's for sure though, not only does the MVFC dominate in the top 25 of polls, it also has many, if not most of its teams in the top 25 of attendance for FCS.

Here's how the attendance figures breakdown as of after week 4 in 2008. (I prefer to align the numbers up on the left in order to make the list look cleaner)

Missouri Valley

18,837 - North Dakota State
15,817 - Youngstown State
14,023 - Illinois State
13,912 - South Dakota State
13,324 - Western Illinois
12,356 - Northern Iowa
12,239 - Southern Illinois
11,690 - Missouri State
4,627 - Indiana State

Mid-American

22,054 - Western Michigan
20,936 - Northern Illinois
20,382 - Central Michigan
19,701 - Bowling Green
19,103 - Ohio
19,036 - Toledo
18,674 - Ball State
17,495 - Buffalo
17,409 - Temple
17,171 - Eastern Michigan
16,509 - Miami (OH)
12,970 - Akron
12,618 - Kent State

Sun Belt

23,978 - Arkansas State
23,559 - Middle Tenneessee State
22,297 - Western Kentucky
22,105 - Troy
19,783 - North Texas
18,241 - Louisiana-Lafayette
16,717 - Florida International
15,823 - Louisiana-Monroe
15,143 - Florida Atlantic


It looks to me like this conference could be where the Sun Belt is attendance-wise in 5-10 years. I seriously think that with the hope that Wichita State brings back football, they could get at least 20,000 for games. Then with further renovations to SDSU, ILSU, WIU and MOSU, new stadiums for SIU and INSU, this conference could be in a strong situation for an FBS move.

[Go_Herd]

(I prefer to align the numbers up on the left in order to make the list look cleaner)

Good to know there is another OCD bisonviller out there.



Nice work Bisonator.
Some of those schools are pretty pathetic....what ever happened to the whole Avg. 15,000 mark? Or is that over a certain period of time?

[gt_bison]

Some of those schools are pretty pathetic....what ever happened to the whole Avg. 15,000 mark? Or is that over a certain period of time?

It's over a two year rolling period, and you can use actual or paid attendance, whichever works out to your school's benefit. I swear there also used to be an escape clause allowing for schools who were members of conferences where the average attendance met the criteria to be allowed to stay in FBS, as for a while, that was the only way Duke could meet the attendance criterion. However, I can't find anything about that in the NCAA Bylaws at the moment.

[BisonNeil]

Interesting stats. Which team/conference would you find more interesting than FCS?

Mountain West Attendance-2008 to date

Air Force- 38,066
BYU- 64,107
CSU-20,795
NM- 30,642
SDSU- 26,851
TCU- 52,605
UNLV- 25,820
Utah- 45,352
WY- 20,025

I think the collective stats for attendance of the MAC, Sun Belt and MW collectively indicate that bottom feeding football programs can't compete, in their own conference or otherwise. You want to compete at a high level in any non-BCS football conference? You need money from people in the stands. The Fargodome isn't going to cut it, with or without renovations. It's not a fixer upper, it would take a new stadium and now your talking serious cash.

[IzzyFlexion]

I, too like your numbers analysis B-Nater. I was just in Muncie, IN today and drove by Testicle Tech (a.k.a. Ball State) and their stadium is really crappy looking. Their visitors side stands look they belong in a JUCO stadium. They have a sweet double decker press/VIP enclosure but everything else looks lousy.

[Paulie]

An outdoor stadium would hurt attendance, the softies won't want to be out in the cold. I'm sure Lakes would be gone by halftime as per usual.

[SamsRams]

Mountain West Attendance-2008 to date


UNLV- 25,820

Without question, over half of those UNLV numbers are from the visiting teams.

[lakesbison]

paulie... ONLY IF ITS A CUPCAKE!!!

[TheBisonator]

I updated the figures for this week. Here's the figures for competing FCS conferences, the CAA and Southern:

Colonial Athletic

22,113 - Delaware
16,134 - James Madison
15,767 - Massachusetts
10,469 - William & Mary
8,604 - Villanova
7,215 - New Hampshire
6,769 - Richmond
5,609 - Hofstra
4,807 - Maine
4,589 - Towson
4,449 - Rhode Island
1,137 - Northeastern (Last place in ALL Division I)

Southern

29,585 - Appalachian State
17,681 - Georgia Southern
11,861 - Citadel
10,072 - Furman
9,174 - Elon
7,414 - Western Carolina
7,256 - Samford
6,620 - Chattanooga
5,874 - Wofford

The other top two FCS conferences are very top-heavy in attendance. The Missouri Valley has the best potential to meet FBS attendance standards.

[IzzyFlexion]

B-Nator, you're quite the little numbers master. Want to do my taxes next year?

[extremerouge]

hey Bisonator, the numbers look really good on the left side like that! ;)

[stevdock]

Imagine that it took one conference win to start up the move up to FBS talk again. Well at least it waited again until after we won one. Again I see absolutely no point in moving to FBS unless you get into the BCS conferences and I would hope we all know that isn't going to happen.

[BisonNeil]

I think this article should be required reading for all Bison fans, those who want to move to FBS and those who want to stay at FCS. The article is about Western Kentucky's move to FBS. WKU, if you recall, left the Gateway/MVFC to join the SunBelt Conference which they belong to in all other sports. It was WKU move to FBS that opened the door for SDSU and NDSU as the old Gateway looked to expand.

It's fairly long, but worth the read, IMO. I suggest reading the insert on "More Revenue, More Costs" on the left hand side as well.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/football/sunbelt/2008-10-05-western-kentucky_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip