Well, that one’s got it all. A poorly ranked university whose students don’t even care about football lies pathetically about game attendance at its newly renovated stadium. Does it get any lower?
At Arkansas, which stumbled its way through a 4-8 season last year, scanned attendance was 58 percent of its announced figures. No matter, the Razorbacks’ football stadium is reopening this season with an increased capacity of 4,000 following a $160 million renovation project.
“[P]hony attendance figures are … another small piece of the rickety structure that holds up the college sports scam,” notes Deadspin‘s writer.
Another small piece?
The NCAA supposedly requires a 15,000 “actual or paid” two-year average attendance to stay in D-I, but even that threat appears to be completely toothless. According to the WSJ, “The NCAA accepts the announced attendance numbers schools submit ‘at face value.’”
And why? Why, why, why?
You know UD‘s take on why a school whose students don’t attend football games would spend tens of millions of dollars enlarging their stadium, right?
It’s because they can’t think of anything else to do. What else do universities… do?
September 2nd, 2018 at 8:37PM
Coastal Carolina!
How cool is that? I attended the first game ever at the (then) new Brooks Stadium in the fall of 2003.
I expected better from the folk there.
September 4th, 2018 at 9:55AM
What kind of wuss names a football team the “Chanticleers”? Change their name to Cockfighters and watch the fans pour in.
September 4th, 2018 at 9:59AM
tp: I already knew you and I were kindred spirits, but yes – I considered pointing out that if your football team’s name makes you sound like a tiny chorus fiercely devoted to early Renaissance song you should probably expect things to go poorly.