So Mike Bianci mentioned this morning that our Homecoming attendance was

[Knight_Classes_begin_7pm]

absolutely terrible.

I actually thought it was pretty good for and AAC team that went 0-12 last year.

Aren't we the clear leader in AAC attendance?

Thoughts?

 

[EngAlum98]

Bianchi can't count past 10.

 

[HammerB08]

"Absolutely terrible" is totally inaccurate. If he wants to see absolutely terrible attendance go look at what happened in Tampa the last two weekends to the team with the best record in our division. 16,585 and 19,524 people showed up for each of those games, the first one being homecoming.

We had definitely more than 30,000 actually come through the door and over 38,000 tickets sold (announced attendance) for a team coming off 0-12 and looking to just become bowl eligible. People leaving early was a problem, though, and we've beaten that dead horse in a few threads already.

 

[SiberianKnightmare]

I was at the game and remarked I was disappointed in the turn out. I was really hoping for many more people.

I was even more disappointed by student participation. We have 60,0000 students and I've seen more students attend the game and tailgate 10-15 years ago. Friends of mine and I were on campus Friday night and it was like a ghost town. Burger U had a handful of people, but the frat houses were dark and you couldn't find a student anywhere.

 

[Poolside Knight]

yeah students have been consistently the best in the Conference most years but idk what's happened to them. It could be the after effects of 0-12 completely killing morale and pride to where they are apathetic. Greek Park being dark is weird, were they dumb enough to schedule something else on HC weekend?

 

[UCFProud]

Knowing Bianci he probably didn't even make it to the game until the second half when all the "gotta beat the traffic" nerds had left. His assesment is correct for the second half, not the first.

 

[Poolside Knight]

Bianchi flips quick. He'll go from the biggest UCF cheerleader in the World but once he knows expansion is dead he suddenly flips back to the snobby Gator talking down to the fanbase & Program

 

[ucfversusbcs]

You know where his office is. Drive by and let him have it.

 

[SCKnight]

I guess I don't understand the mentality. But attendance is down all over the country. Even that said UCF has never had tremendous attendance. Even in our 12-1 season we were just over 40k. We have always hovered around 30-35k. what has changed so much that people should expect something different? We are in the top 10 in non-P5 and are not in the bottom of P-5 programs.

Do people really expect UCF to reach UF/FSU numbers? I thought that 39k for homecoming in a rebuilding year was pretty good. I don't expect that now that we are in AAC for the foreseeable future that there will be a big jump.

Most of the big programs rely upon generations of alums and fans to fill the stands. People forget that with the exception of a few Daunte years we did not even average 20K in the stands. The football culture at UCF really started in 2005. Even more so when we moved on campus in 2007. Until then UCF students who were also UCF football fanatics were probably a large minority.

What Bianchi misses is that how many non p-5 teams average 30k. Then how many 0-12 non P5 teams teams average 30k? What this says is that despite a young fanbase and a serious down year UCF has a very large base of about 30k loyal dedicated fans. They have about 12k that are fickle and come only when it is a big deal.

 

[UCFProud]

Buanci has a face for radio,
A voice for print,
And the mentality of a bad cartoonist.

 

[Poolside Knight]

great points @SCKnight . add into the fact that the Program has only been D1 for 20 years and over half of those years were bad football teams.

UCF can be a successful Program hovering about 40k fans a game just like TCU has been, there is this unreasonable expectation of UCF fans that have dealt with a lot of down years

 

[Knight_Classes_begin_7pm]

I also think, until we get in a P-5 (or whatever), fans won't come to games until opponents are "Big Time" names.

Also, obviously, when we are a winning team, many many more show up to games!

 

[SiberianKnightmare]

There were not 39K people at Homecoming. No way.

 

[UCFProud]

There were not 1/3 empty seats either.... During the first half at least.

 

[Mikesi]

There were not 1/3 empty seats either.... During the first half at least.

Correct. There were 6,000- 8,000 empty seats