- Apr 17, 2018
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78Let's look at Auburn rather than Tennessee since the comps are closer.
It's not stadium size. Heck, we rarely even fill ours anymore. Jordan-Hare Stadium seats fewer fans than Ben Hill Griffin and yet Auburn outpaced us in ticket sales by 4.4M. It's not price. Auburn charges $0.25 less per ticket on average.
Is there less to do in Auburn than Gainesville? Perhaps but my guess is not by much. Gainesville isn't exactly a megalopolis and it's an hour/hour and a half's drive to the beach. There aren't that many kids laying on Crescent Beach who could be instead at Ben Hill Griffin.
The answer is the product on the field. Auburn over the past decade has consistently fielded top-flight teams. We haven't.
Auburn is a fair comp. The current advantages they have for game attendance over UF are:
-They have been winning (beat Bama) and have momentum
-their games have had a more exciting offense
-there is less to do in the state of Alabama than the state of Florida
- at birth in the state of Alabama you have to declare if you are a Bama fan or an Auburn fan and if you say neither they hate those people worse. These type of people go to games. The state of Florida is not as intense on college football as we have professional sports in Florida.
-UF is harder to get into and accepts more professional students (not raised on college football) who have no life outside of studying and do not attend football games. Hence our student section hurts our attendance figures.