Following last week's 30-24 loss to Southern Miss, the Virginia football team has faced a number of questions from disappointed fans. One of the more prominent concerns that has been raised relates to the consistently lackluster attendance that the football team continues to attract. Through this season's first two home games, Virginia has drawn an average of only 47,588 fans despite Scott Stadium having a capacity of 61,500. This follows a season in which the team had an average attendance of 45,459.
In response to these figures, there have been calls for the University to do more to stimulate attendance at home football games. Student Council and Hoo Crew have done their part by organizing the Fill the Hill campaign, which has sought to mobilize student support for the football team through social media. Yet targeting the student body will have only a marginal impact upon overall attendance.
If the University hopes to fill Scott Stadium for home football games, then it must convince alumni, Charlottesville residents and other non-student fans to devote their time and money to Virginia football rather than the area's many other attractions. Unfortunately, there are few options for doing so in the short term other than lowering ticket prices, which most likely would be uneconomical. Therefore, it seems that attendance will remain flat until the University's long-term strategy for improving the quality of its on-field product can run its course.
The steady decline in football attendance is not surprising given the program's downward trajectory since 2007, when it went 9-4 and appeared in the Gator Bowl. Since then, the team has compiled 14 wins and 26 losses. Although Virginia football has a loyal fan base, its ticket sales lack the self-perpetuating momentum of other schools such as Texas and Georgia, which both averaged sellout crowds during losing campaigns last season. Thus, home crowds have dwindled as fans have shifted toward other leisure activities.
The obvious way to combat this phenomenon would be to lower ticket prices, which start at $18 for tomorrow's home game against Idaho. This would make Virginia football games more attractive to alumni and community members who currently may be reluctant to forego similarly priced activities such as restaurant outings, concerts and movies for a roughly one-in-three chance of seeing a victory by the home team. For this step to be taken, however, either the marginal revenue generated from the additional fans would have to exceed the marginal costs they induce, or the University would have to decide that subsidizing fan attendance is a good way to spend its money. Although a bigger crowd could provide a small lift to the football team and could have positive spillover effects for local businesses if it draws fans from outside of the area, it would be tough for the University to justify this measure since it most likely would necessitate sacrifices from student-athletes involved in other sports or a hike in the fees that students pay to support the Athletic Department.
A more feasible method of filling Scott Stadium on Saturdays involves recruiting talented staff and players who can produce wins more consistently. The University embarked on what it hopes to be the beginning of this strategy when it hired Mike London as head football coach in December 2009. As with any institution, however, Virginia football will take time to rebuild. While the program strives to do so, those fans who continue to attend home football games should remain supportive and take solace in the fact that more wins also will mean fewer empty seats.
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