Attendance for Georgia Tech football on the uptick
The Georgia Tech football program, week in and week out, strives for consistency on the field. It appears, through three games in 2025 anyway, that the Yellow Jackets are closer than they have been in quite some time to meeting that standard of consistency.
In the stands at Bobby Dodd Stadium, consistency pertaining to large crowds has yet to become the norm, although the trajectory is on an uptick.
On Saturday, when the Jackets lined up against No. 12 Clemson, the attendance number of 48,059 left a little less than 4,000 empty seats at Tech’s home venue (official capacity is down from 55,000 to 51,913 because of construction). The size of the crowd undoubtedly made for a hostile environment for the visiting Tigers, yet it was still short of a sellout despite the Jackets going for one of their biggest home wins in recent memory. Outside of matchups with archrival Georgia in 2019, 2021 and 2023, the Jackets have not played in front of a crowd larger than 50,000 fans at Bobby Dodd Stadium since Sept. 22, 2018.
“After the locker room (celebration Saturday), we had a revenue team meeting, which (was focused on) our internal and external stakeholders,” Tech athletic director Ryan Alpert told 680 The Fan on Thursday. “How are we gonna engage them? How are we gonna sell tickets? How are we gonna get more students in the building for this (next) weekend? With three home games in a row, no matter where you are, that’s difficult for a fan base to give up those three weekends.
“But how do we celebrate this win, but also turn the page and be able to generate more revenue, licensing? Trying to turn a great win on the field, celebrate it, but also, how can we generate revenue, selling tickets and engaging our fan base?”
Tech has averaged 42,917 fans in its first two home games this month. The Jackets, ranked No. 18 in this week’s Associated Press Top 25, host Temple (2-1) at 4:30 p.m. Saturday and then have three remaining games at Bobby Dodd Stadium after that.
An average of 36,321 fans attended six home games at Bobby Dodd in 2023, Key’s first season, and an average of 38,215 showed up to the venue during the 2024 campaign. The 48,000-plus fans at Saturday’s matchup against Clemson were the most for one of Tech’s ACC home matchups since Tech played in front of 48,217 on Nov. 10, 2018, against Miami.
Victories, or lack thereof, of course, play a part in that time frame.
From 2019-23, the Jackets won only 11 times inside Bobby Dodd Stadium. Since the start of last season, Tech’s home win total is up to seven. If Tech tops Temple on Saturday, it will have won eight games in a row at home for the first time since winning three in a row to end the 2016 season and then five consecutive in 2017.
Tech’s student body certainly has taken notice of the home-field success, showing up in droves toward the end of the ’24 season and at the beginning of this one. For the Clemson game, Tech issued 12,000 student tickets, the most in school history.
Many of those students stormed the field after Aidan Birr’s 55-yard field goal at the buzzer gave Tech a 24-21 win. Tech’s next goal is to have the rest of the stadium filled to the brim, not just for the marquee matchups but any time Tech takes the field in Midtown.
“A win like that on the national stage, it triggers people’s attention. Now it’s our job to be able to bring them in,” Alpert said. “I think we’ve been a lot more aggressive from a marketing standpoint. Our ticket sales team is calling everybody that’s bought tickets in the last seven years. We’ve got an AI-generated opportunity to bring lead lists in and engage those folks.
“We’ve got to become Atlanta’s hometown college football team. It’s really important from a branding standpoint. You didn’t have to go here, but you can still love what’s going on.”
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