Looking deeper into Tech football attendance...

by BirdGT on Jun 14, 2010 1:15 PM EDT

Last week, I wrote a piece that was mostly meant to stir discussion concerning BDS attendance. Today, I want to break it down some more and address questions raised in the comments.

First off, Brent L. White pointed out a pretty interesting phenomenon:

One more thing: Aren’t we selling many more tickets post-expansion than before? We were at around 43,000, and attendance has been in the high-40s to low-50s. All those games would be sell-outs in the pre-expansion stadium.

The short answer is YES we are selling more tickets now that the stadium has expanded. Check out this timeline:

In fact, we're selling about 6,700 more tickets per game. Let's say we remove Georgia and Clemson from the entire discussion. We've still increased attendance by about 6,100 fans per non-uga/CU game. So the Clemson/Georgie deck wasn't built exclusively for the 'necks despite their best arguments to the contrary. Now, if the cheapest ticket is 38 bucks, then we've increased ticket revenue by a quarter million per game with the expansion. That's not too shabby.

Another interesting question was raised about how Tech fans pick and choose which games to attend rather than merely attending every game. This is broken down in the following chart:

Basically, it shows our average attendance, attendance for ranked opponents, attendance when Tech is ranked, and attendance when both teams are ranked. Now, is this trend an indictment of the Tech fan base? I don't think so. I believe that the similarity in attendances shows that Tech fans show up whether Tech is having a good season or not (only 400 fan difference between Tech being ranked versus unranked). There's no bandwagon attitude. Tech fans just show up. There may not be many of us but we show to every game. The spike for ranked opponents, I believe, is more attributable to larger, successful programs playing at BDS (e.g. Georgie, Notre Dame, Clemson, VT). Opposing fans are more willing to come to Atlanta if their team is successful and their odds of victory are higher. Hence, the following chart, which shows Tech attendance for victories is much lower than Tech attendance for losses (~3,200 people lesss since 2003):

Any thoughts out there on BDS attendance? Any questions/concerns?

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What about...

…the relationship between an upward trend in wins versus a downward trend? For example, did attendance drop after Gailey’s 7 win seasons and then rise after the 9-winner? Also, does attendence rise as a rule when there’s a major coaching change? Or maybe we could figure out which type of marketing the AA used that year to try and correlate with attendance. Dawg fans always rip us on the “yall have to give away hotdogs and coke to sell tickets” thing…but does it work? Just a few things I wonder upon reading your posts. Which reminds me – awesome posts! As a Tech student I love me some stats!

by GT_Jason on Jun 15, 2010 12:18 AM EDT reply actions

One more thing...

Anyone know just why the stadium looks the way it does? I mean it looks to me like they were building a big two-deck “bowled in” rectangle when they just ran out of money somewhere over the Edge building (the part that, if added, would make the North Endzone Deck symmetrical). Personally, I walk by or through the stadium every day, and I can’t even tell if the East and West sides are the same height. Why the hodge-podge? I mean, look at a place like Autzen at Oregon. I know its built on more land with money from Nike, but it holds about as many fans as BDS but does it in a prettier way with more efficient noise amplification. I know Tech alumni could do that if they wanted. As of now it seems like if it were ever “completed” it might look something like a tighter, longer version of what Miami plays in.

I’m just sayin…if aesthetics, atmosphere, fan experience or stadium size play into this whole attendance numbers and revenue game why would Tech not make a better bid at contending with the best medium sized stadiums out there? Any thoughts?

by GT_Jason on Jun 15, 2010 12:55 AM EDT reply actions

They couldn't build up the East Stands because...

the dorms on East Campus are on the National Register of Historic Places. If you added to the East Stands you would interfere with the natural light of that area and you are not allowed to do that.

FromTheRumbleSeat: Where Georgia Tech and statistics go hand-in-hand.

by Winfield Featherston on Jun 15, 2010 7:39 AM EDT up reply actions

I was

under the impression that the City will not allow construction over North Ave/Techwood because of its high traffic volume.

With no powers, comes no responsibility.

by BirdGT on Jun 15, 2010 8:23 AM EDT up reply actions

well now we have an argument on our hands

FromTheRumbleSeat: Where Georgia Tech and statistics go hand-in-hand.

by Winfield Featherston on Jun 15, 2010 9:23 AM EDT up reply actions

So you're tellin me that...

…even if Tech begins winning 11 games a season for the next 20 years and draws a bigger fan base that wants to come to every game (I’m dreaming now), we could only expand parts of the stadium that don’t mess with Britain, Glenn/Towers, and Techwood Drive? Are they all THAT important?! Sounds ludicrous to me. Future planning anyone?

My vote is that all stadiums in the ACC should be ready for expansion as this league takes off in the next 10 years. Ours seems….not ready for that. I like BDS and our team playing on Grant Field, but football is football and if need money we need fans, and if we like fans and want to keep them we need a cooler place for them to come watch. Just sayin.

by GT_Jason on Jun 15, 2010 2:07 PM EDT up reply actions

I like the way the stadium looks

As for attendance, I think it would be extremely interesting to see the location of the fanbase and how that relates to attendance. On The Falcoholic, Adam Schultz has done a few reader locale profiles in an attempt to understand where the readership lives.

I’m not exactly sure how this would work, but I would think that understanding the average distance between the stadium and the fans would have somewhat of an impact on attendance. This is more of a poll analysis than it is a pure statistical analysis though because the question would be “Does distance affect your decision to attend games?”

Just a thought.

"You could spend the next fifteen seconds of your life watching a man and a tiger scream together, or you could be an idiot."
Fact.

by Jesse28 on Jun 15, 2010 7:55 AM EDT up reply actions

We have an

alumni tracking system somewhere on the AA’s website but for the non-traditional fans, there’s not really a good method out there for tracking them other than getting addresses of every season ticket holder from the AA. That seems a little bit like invasion of privacy though.

I will look into it and produce the data for fan locations as soon as I find it.

With no powers, comes no responsibility.

by BirdGT on Jun 15, 2010 8:23 AM EDT up reply actions