Let's predict the 2011 Home Attendance

by BirdGT on Aug 11, 2011 11:05 AM EDT in Georgia Tech Football

2010 was a fairly poor season as far as home crowd attendance went. Tech's fan base only amassed 278,696 total attendance (46,450 per game). This was the lowest season attendance since 2002 (a pre-55,000 season). Not a single Paul Johnson team has yet to eclipse Chan Gailey's last two seasons in total attendance (50,617 and 50,280 per game respectively). If there were a season to do it, however, this would be the one.

If we stick purely on average attendances since 1996, I-AA games have averaged 45,097, I-A out of conference games have averaged 46,620, UNC has averaged 46,791, Maryland has averaged 44,733, Clemson has averaged 48,917, VT has averaged 51,668, and uga has averaged 50,140. That's a grand total of 333,966 total fans for 2011. Now, if we only take in to account post-expansion numbers (2003-2010), we're talking a possible increase in 22,449 fans over the season.

Now, Clemson and Georgie fans like to harp on our expansion. They call the North end zone the Clemson deck or the "do-your-sister deck" because it's typically infested with mouth breathers on Clemson and Georgie gamedays. They don't look at the numbers like I do. The two Maryland @ Tech games since 2003 had almost 11,000 more fans per game than the 1997-2001 Terp average attendance. UNC, as another example, has increased their average attendance at Tech by around 4,000 fans since the expansion.

Back to the main point. I think we have a shot at reaching the 2006-2007 attendance numbers. We need a strong start out of the gate to keep the fans engaged and a later kickoff against the Terps to make up for a possible attendance egg in Kansas at 12:30PM.

What are your thoughts? You going to every game in 2011? Are you going to any road games?

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Been to every home game for 6 years running.

Will keep attending ad infinitum. Seriously, my skeleton oughta be dressed in Old Gold and propped up right there in that North End Zone expansion when I’m dead and gone.

by GT_Jason on Aug 11, 2011 11:49 AM EDT reply actions

WOW

not even the 2009 season surpassed Gailey’s last two seasons is very surprising

The ACC & SEC Blog

by accsecblog on Aug 11, 2011 12:16 PM EDT reply actions

Gailey's last two seasons were pre-economy bubble bursting

I’ve been to way more games per year than I have in the CPJ era for that reason myself, so I know others are in the same boat. We’ve discussed this here just about every year, so I won’t rehash reasons for people not going to games.

However, if I had to predict an outcome for this year’s attendance I would guess that we might be looking at another year similar to last season’s numbers, but with a slight bump because of the awesome home schedule. We’re coming off a down year and the economy isn’t getting much better, so the casual fan attendance will probably be the same or lower. The die-hards and the visitor fanbase will be up based on the aforemention home schedule.

"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 Aug 11, 2011 12:49 PM EDT up reply actions

I think you're right.

“Correct” as the professors say…at places other than GT.

by GT_Jason on Aug 11, 2011 1:35 PM EDT up reply actions

And there was this guy named

Calvin Johnson.

I purposely bought goal line 2nd row tickets NW corner so both my children could see that jump/catch/both feet inbounds at their first CFB games. You could see it coming….

by DressHerInWhiteAndGold on Aug 11, 2011 11:20 PM EDT up reply actions

Nice!

I’ll be quite honest, it’s going to be difficult to find extra room in the budget this year for me. There’s just been a lot of unexpected things going on in my life the last two months and I’m not too sure how big of an impact it’s all going to have. But that’s life, sometimes you have to make sacrifices, especially when it’s family that is involved.

I want to get to at least two games. That’s my goal at least.

"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 Aug 12, 2011 8:28 AM EDT up reply actions

This year

You get UGA, VT, and Clemson at home? Your ticket box should be slammed with requests

Don't give up, don't ever give up ~ Jim Valvano

by AParker on Aug 11, 2011 2:47 PM EDT reply actions

Home Slate

Grant Field Schedule is Western Carolina, Kansas, UNC, Maryland, Clemson, VT, Georgia. This is good for us. But a 6 win campaign last year, low expectations this year after losses to EVERY rival and a service academy bowl debacle, no big stars coming back who media outlets would tout, and a struggling economy mean our fans will likely be watching on TV rather than spend money to wake up too early and fight parking wars to get to the stadium this season for noon-ish kickoffs. At least until they see a likely 3-0 start. If that happens the UNC game will fill up more to see the 4th W get tacked on. And if we can pull off a 5-0 start heading into the Maryland game (at NC State being the biggest obstacle in so doing) , Bobby Dodd stadium should be packed out to watch what will likely be the 6th W. Of course, games against CU, VT and GU will take care of themselves. Those are the rivals, and we all want at least 2 of those to be W’s. One key – Beat VT and the GU game will be sold out guaranteed.

by GT_Jason on Aug 11, 2011 4:00 PM EDT up reply actions