Attendance - I haven't ranted in a while

[Triple B]

Its not just the Bulls. Bucs facing 10th straight black out, worse in NFL. The opener attendance was worse in the NFL, attendance is down 20%. Rays, biggest drop in attendance in MLB.. Of the 100 largest metropolitan area in the U.S., Tampa is third lowest in economic recovery since 2010. And looking at income of the 6 largest areas in the SE, Tampa is last. All that info is in the Tampa Trib.

Also, the mighty Gators didn't sell out a game for the first time in a couple of decades .... and then repeated the feat the following week. The economy is a big part of this whether people want to acknowledge that or not.

[CousinRicky]

Let me just play Devil's Advocate here for a minute-

We play in an NFL stadium with Seats that are in complete contrast from what our fans are wearing-  all empty seats will always stick out like a sore thumb

Since we play in an NFL stadium (one of the nicest stadiums in the league that has hosted multiple Super bowls)- it has HUGE club levels on both sidelines and Common areas in both end zones.  If you took all the people who stand in the common areas in both end zones and also took 75% of the people out of the club level-

We would have a much better appearance as far as crowd goes.

But we do play in a bandwagon town.

For what its worth- Pitt had quite a few empty seats today and they played Norte Dame.

I don't know about the Dale Mabry club, but the Himes Ave side doesn't have more than 100 people in there during the game itself.  The areas behind the student section is filled with people standing the whole game.

But to my point, those people aren't fans.  They are students there to socialize.  If they were fans they would be sitting watching the game.

[USoFlo]

I thought the turn out wasn't that bad. We were playing UTEP after all. I would venture to say that after these 3 non-conf. games that we have had, the attendance is better overall than last year at this point. I think when we see the numbers at the end of the year, it will exceed last years numbers.

[Triple B]

We are what we are .... Only time will build the fanbase to where we get 50+K for games like this on a consistent basis ... hopefully.

You mean some random dude going on a whiny rant on the Internet isn't going to make more people show up to the games?!?

If it did, we'd be in our 5th or 6th year of constant sellouts ...

[slick1ru2]

Notre Dame Pitt game had lots of empty seats up top and its a rivalry game. I think that the ESPN crews do a good job on TV coverage at Ray Jay to at least give the illusion of a stadium with lots of people in it. You have to be looking for it to really notice the empty seats.

[LETHALWEAPONMV]

Thought the same thing about the 20 or so recruits when I saw them leaving the field and walking up the steps with their parents.  It was really pitiful tonight with only 39,000 distributed but there couldn't have been more than 30,000 there.  It's really a shame that the lower level visitor side between the 20's, ALWAYS on tv, is completely sold out to big donors and sponsors who never show up.

Waverly Austin verbally committed to basketball game MINUTES after the game was over - http://www.tboblogs.com/index.php/sports/comments/juco-center-austin-picks-bulls/

(I know not Potential Recruits board but still BIG news)

[CousinRicky]

We are what we are .... Only time will build the fanbase to where we get 50+K for games like this on a consistent basis ... hopefully.

You mean some random dude going on a whiny rant on the Internet isn't going to make more people show up to the games?!?

Nobody controls this, it's stupid to get so stressed out about it. If you thought the attendance to this game was going to be any different than it turned out to be, you haven't been paying very much attention.

Also, the use of USF's ranking to justify your ranting is silly. So if USF wasn't ranked, you wouldn't come here whining? Or you'd think people are justified in not showing up? Somehow I doubt it.

Never said it was going to help.  But it does irritate me.  The rant relieves the stress.  And the ranking, IMO, should have something to do with it.  If you have a crap team, then I would think you could justify somewhat not wanting to see a game.   Personally I think you show up no matter the ranking to support your team.  But if you were expecting to see bandwagon fans, now would be the time.

[Bull Dozer]

Let me just play Devil's Advocate here for a minute-

We play in an NFL stadium with Seats that are in complete contrast from what our fans are wearing-  all empty seats will always stick out like a sore thumb

Since we play in an NFL stadium (one of the nicest stadiums in the league that has hosted multiple Super bowls)- it has HUGE club levels on both sidelines and Common areas in both end zones.  If you took all the people who stand in the common areas in both end zones and also took 75% of the people out of the club level-

We would have a much better appearance as far as crowd goes.

But we do play in a bandwagon town.

For what its worth- Pitt had quite a few empty seats today and they played Norte Dame.

I don't know about the Dale Mabry club, but the Himes Ave side doesn't have more than 100 people in there during the game itself.  The areas behind the student section is filled with people standing the whole game.

But to my point, those people aren't fans.  They are students there to socialize.  If they were fans they would be sitting watching the game.

The Pirate ship standers are there to try to make connections to get laid later that night and nothing more.  The configuration of our stadium allows for that so it will happen.  At other big schools that kind of social interaction happens in the student section because they lack the nice standing area where you can easily watch the game while trying to line up some trim/**** for later that night.  

[callmesuperman]

Crowd did not look good on TV, ESPN3.

Yes, and they also could wait until after the game to paint the Bucs logo in the endzone area. Does not look good on tv. We should have painted Bulls logo in endzone area for every home game.

[Triple B]

Notre Dame Pitt game had lots of empty seats up top and its a rivalry game.

I was wondering about that ... The ND radio crew said the game was a sellout.