Georgia was ninth in the FBS in attendance this season with more than 92,000 fans a game. (UGA Athletics)
College football attendance was down across the country, but you wouldn’t have guessed that if you went to SEC games this season.
Even though the average attendance at FBS games was 43,483, according to CBSSports.com, it's lowest average total in 14 years, attendance increased three percent in the SEC, to an average of 78,018.
This is from the article:
SEC: Once again it led the country in attendance, averaging a record 78,018 fans. Aided by expanded stadiums and Tennessee's fan resurgence, the SEC was up 3 percent. Florida, South Carolina, Kentucky and Vanderbilt were the only SEC teams with a decrease.
Attendance at Florida games — their fans stopped going to watch their 6-5 team — fell to 85,834 a game, the fourth consecutive season they were less than 90,000 “after consistently being above that benchmark.”
Two Georgia teams — Georgia Southern and Georgia State — were among six new FBS schools, joining Old Dominion, Charlotte, Appalachian State and Texas-San Antonio, which have small smaller stadiums. Or in the case of Georgia State, struggle to attract fans to its games.
“This marked the sixth straight season crowds were below 46,000 since they peaked at 46,456 in 2008. … But even when removing those teams from the calculation, the average for returning FBS schools (44,544) would be the lowest since 2002.”
More from the article:
Ohio State, which averaged 106,296 fans, ended Michigan's 16-year run atop the attendance leaders. Michigan dropped to third at 104,909 behind No. 2 Texas A&M (105,123).
The biggest increases among Power Five schools: Texas A&M (21 percent), Maryland (14 percent), LSU (11 percent), Mississippi State (10 percent), Rutgers (9 percent), Florida State (9 percent) and UCLA (nine percent). Texas A&M, LSU and Mississippi State expanded their stadiums this season. Maryland and Rutgers were new Big Ten members.
Georgia was ninth in the FBS, with 92,746 a game — the same as in 2013 — and Georgia Tech had a one percent decrease in attendance to fall to an average of 48,519 fans a game, the article stated.
