Historical Husker Spring Game Attendance

[Mavric]

[No message]

 

[SuperBigFan69]

Wow, that low in 2002?

 

[Landlord]

Wow, that low in 2002?

2002 was right on par with pretty much all of program history excluding the 90's demi-god championship run and until Callahan came along and turned the spring game into an entirely different sort of thing altogether.

 

[CheeseHusker]

Surprised that even in the early 80s, it struggled to get 20k. I went to a couple back then as a kid and I certainly don't recall the crowds being that small.

 

[84HuskerLaw]

For many years attendance was free so it is unlikely they really kept a true count. It was obvious the stadium would not be full so there was really no need to keep exact records. Estiamtes from the skybox would have been sufficient probably. I think we had a couple awful weather spring games which made attendance drop way down as well. One year it was cancelled altogether because of severe rainstorms. I also think once or twice it would have been a poor crowd because of the way the game had been turned into a lowly and not very serious 'practice'. Not sure which coach did this. I never really felt Callahan and Pelini took it serious enough, disrespecting the fans somewhat and making a big joke of fans coming to watch a practice. Frankly, the game always had a decent crowd as long as I can remember but was until the past decade or so always much more of a game like scrimmage.

 

[knapplc]

Wow, that low in 2002?

2002 was right on par with pretty much all of program history excluding the 90's demi-god championship run and until Callahan came along and turned the spring game into an entirely different sort of thing altogether.

Attendance in the early- to mid-90s wasn't much to speak of. You could walk up and sit anywhere in the stadium just before the game kicked off, no ticket, nothing.

In the late 90s they started charging a dollar or two, or you could bring in a can of food as a donation, for admission. There were maybe 15,000 people there from 1995-ish and before. It wasn't until 1996 that they made it into more of a fan event.