Tickets Sold Compared to Actual Attendance

Mavric

Mavric

Yoda
Staff member
How bad did it get in 2017?

Each of Nebraska’s last three home games last season — Ohio State, Northwestern and Iowa — had fewer than 70,000 scanned tickets at the gate, according to information provided by Nebraska to The World-Herald.

Scanned tickets don’t include recruits, media, ushers, coaches, staff, players, cheerleaders, the band, concession workers and the like, so it's not the total attendance inside the stadium. It's the fans who sit in the stands and in the suites.

But think about this:

Ranked Ohio State. Night game. And just 67,400 scanned tickets, the lowest total of any 2017 home game. That’s for kickoff. Imagine how many fans actually populated the stands after halftime.

Northwestern announced attendance: 89,721. Scanned tickets: 68,996.

Iowa announced attendance: 90,046, Scanned tickets: 69,436

...

The scanned ticket totals for 2016 and 2017 home games:

2016

Fresno State       76,048

Wyoming            74,332

Oregon                80,865

Illinois                  77,442

Purdue                 76,532

Minnesota           74,945

Maryland             64,852

2017

Arkansas State   76,508

No. Illinois           70,525

Rutgers                70,104

Wisconsin            77,633

Ohio State           67,400

Northwestern     68,996

Iowa                     69,436
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OWH

 
I wonder if this was a FOIA request, or how they got this information.

I was at the Iowa and the Wisconsin games.  There was marginally more room for Iowa than for Wisconsin in the first half.  In the second half there was plenty of room, especially in the fourth quarter. 

 
HuskerNBigD said:
And that is why the sell-out streak is a bit of a farce. I get the technicality behind it, but still.
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Every time.

Every time this kind of thing gets brought up, someone casts doubt on the sellout streak.

Here's the thing.  Nebraska's sellout streak is as valid as any sellout streak in any sport in America.  If you want to say it isn't, it would be helpful to identify which streaks aren't "a farce," so we could contrast Nebraska's with a "non-farcical" streak.

 
knapplc said:
I wonder if this was a FOIA request, or how they got this information.

I was at the Iowa and the Wisconsin games.  There was marginally more room for Iowa than for Wisconsin in the first half.  In the second half there was plenty of room, especially in the fourth quarter. 
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It says that the numbers are for kickoff, so I would I imagine you could get an extra 5 or 10k who came late in the first quarter. Plus EVERYONE in the stadium that day is counted for the attendance total, right (refs, announcers, Herby, Lil Red...)?

 
knapplc said:
Every time.

Every time this kind of thing gets brought up, someone casts doubt on the sellout streak.

Here's the thing.  Nebraska's sellout streak is as valid as any sellout streak in any sport in America.  If you want to say it isn't, it would be helpful to identify which streaks aren't "a farce," so we could contrast Nebraska's with a "non-farcical" streak.
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I agree that every sell-out streak is a farce. But I also think it is worth pointing out that this type of information proves the point of those that cast doubt on the sellout streak. Maybe not worth pointing out, but I don't think people are wrong for questioning the sell-out when there is clear contradictory information. Did you see the Ohio State game? It is almost an injustice for the university to try and say that was a sellout, there was plenty of room in the south stadium, where I was sitting, beginning at about row 50.

I go to stars games all the time and the pre-game show will mention it's another sell out, then by the time the game starts I look around the arena and think not a chance. I think teams should really stop promoting it. It is funny when they do a live shot intro for a game and say "xyz stadium sold out" and you can clearly see it isn't. 

 
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ZRod said:
It says that the numbers are for kickoff, so I would I imagine you could get an extra 5 or 10k who came late in the first quarter. Plus EVERYONE in the stadium that day is counted for the attendance total, right (refs, announcers, Herby, Lil Red...)?
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The way I read it, when he said "kickoff" I don't think he meant that the numbers were cut of at kickoff time.  I think that was his way of saying that's how many people were actually there, which one would assume most everyone was there by kickoff.  In the next sentence, he alludes to people leaving during the game.  So I think his point was the seats weren't even full at the start of the game, let alone during the second half of blowouts.

 
HuskerNBigD said:
I agree that every sell-out streak is a farce. But I also think it is worth pointing out that this type of information proves the point of those that cast doubt on the sellout streak. Maybe not worth pointing out, but I don't think people are wrong for questioning the sell-out when there is clear contradictory information. Did you see the Ohio State game? It is almost an injustice for the university to try and say that was a sellout, there was plenty of room in the south stadium, where I was sitting, beginning at about row 50.
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Nebraska touts a sellout streak.  A sellout counts tickets sold.

You're talking about attendance.  That's a different thing.

Something else to note about this article and the inference Sam is making here. These stats are provided in a vacuum.  We have no idea how this compares to tickets taken in 2007, 1997, 1987 or 1977.  For all we know, this could be reasonably normal. 

 
knapplc said:
Nebraska touts a sellout streak.  A sellout counts tickets sold.

You're talking about attendance.  That's a different thing.

Something else to note about this article and the inference Sam is making here. These stats are provided in a vacuum.  We have no idea how this compares to tickets taken in 2007, 1997, 1987 or 1977.  For all we know, this could be reasonably normal. 
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Let me rephrase it, I guess I have a hard time getting excited about the number of tickets sold when 75% are actually used. To me, if you're going to beat the drum about selling out all the tickets, you should have all the butts in seats. But that could just be me.

Moiraine said:
It's not at all a farce, unless you don't know what sell out means. In which case, in your head, it's a farce. But not in reality.
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Did you see the part where I said technically I get it? I should've been more clear with my original post, but like I just said to Knapp, I understand that sell-out is the tickets sold. I just have a hard time getting excited over the record when our stadium attendance is less than capacity.

 
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HuskerNBigD said:
Let me rephrase it, I guess I have a hard time getting excited about the number of tickets sold when 75% are actually used. To me, if you're going to beat the drum about selling out all the tickets, you should have all the butts in seats. But that could just be me.
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So the sellout streak isn't interesting to you.  That's cool.  Most everyone who thinks it's a neat thing understands the situation.  They're cool with it.

Tennis isn't really interesting to me.  To some people it is.  I don't go into conversations about tennis and tell everyone how boring I find it.  Seems pretty odd to me that some people do. 

 
knapplc said:
So the sellout streak isn't interesting to you.  That's cool.  Most everyone who thinks it's a neat thing understands the situation.  They're cool with it.

Tennis isn't really interesting to me.  To some people it is.  I don't go into conversations about tennis and tell everyone how boring I find it.  Seems pretty odd to me that some people do. 
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I get what you're saying, but I don't think you can draw a perfect parallel between the sellout streak and tennis. I might not find the sellout streak super enticing, but the article was discussing a subset of Husker Football (Husker Football is really interesting to me) - the sell-out versus actually attendance, so I commented. Last I checked, people are free to share opinions on message boards, even if they don't get a hard-on for the topic at hand. 

 
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