This article originally appeared in the February 26, 2014 issue of The Arkansas Traveler.
**NOTE: This is the sixth and final part of a series on the state of the Arkansas football program. For links to previous parts, refer to the bottom of the article.**
Attendance at Arkansas football games reached a 10-year low in
2013.
An average of 67,724 fans watched each of Arkansas’ five home
games in Fayetteville, while an average of only 46,278 watched its two home
games in Little Rock.
The Fayetteville attendance drop can be attributed to downfall of
the Razorbacks’ performance on the field the last two seasons, but the Little
Rock attendance drop is more of an anomaly.
In 2011, the average attendance at Arkansas’ Fayetteville home
football games was 72,113, the second-highest single-season average in UA
history. That season, the Razorbacks went 11-2, won the Cotton Bowl and reached
No. 3 in the BCS rankings.
The next year, average attendance dropped to 70,157 in Fayetteville.
That’s a 2.7 percent decrease.
Before the 2012 season, many experts expected Arkansas’ success to
continue under John L. Smith and the Razorbacks were No. 10 in the preseason
polls.
Arkansas’ preseason recognition and success in the previous year
led to an impressive 71,062 fans at the Razorbacks’ season opener against FCS
Jacksonville State.
Despite rainy weather and an embarrassing loss to Louisiana-Monroe
the week before, 74,617 fans came to Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium and
saw No. 1 Alabama crush the home team 52-0. It was the sixth-largest attendance
in UA history.
The remaining four games in Fayetteville saw an average of only
68,816 fans in attendance.
While attendance in Fayetteville dropped in 2012, Little Rock
attendance actually grew by 0.1 percent. That isn’t much growth, but it is
growth nonetheless.
Those numbers changed drastically in 2013, as attendance at War
Memorial Stadium in Little Rock was the lowest since 1996.
In 1996, an average crowd of 43,078 saw four Arkansas games at War
Memorial Stadium. Since then, the Razorbacks averaged more than 50,000 per game
each year.
That changed last season, as only 46,278 came to the Razorback
games against Samford and Mississippi State in Little Rock. The 2013 attendance
was a 14.7 percent decrease from 2012.
Fayetteville attendance dropped again last season, but not as much
as the Little Rock attendance. The 67,724 fans that came to the Fayetteville
home games was a 3.5 percent decrease from the previous season.
This was also the lowest average attendance in Fayetteville since
2003, when the Razorbacks averaged 66,735 fans per game.
Since the Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium’s capacity was
expanded to 72,000 in 2001, Arkansas has averaged 69,426 fans per game and has
averaged more than 70,000 per game in a season six times.
When the Razorbacks hit the road last season, their attendance
drop did not follow. Of the five road games Arkansas played, only one failed to
draw more fans that its opponents average home attendance.
Arkansas’ games against Rutgers, Florida, Alabama and Ole Miss
actually drew 3.9 percent more fans than those teams’ other home games.
The only road opponent that saw its attendance drop below its
season average when the Razorbacks came to town was LSU. Only 89,656 fans saw
the Tigers pull out a comeback win, compared to the average of 91,712 that saw
their other six games at Tiger Stadium.
It was also the lowest attended Battle for the
Golden Boot in Baton Rouge, La., since 2001, when only 89,560 fans went to the
game.
Links to previous parts of the “State of the
Program” series…
No comments:
Post a Comment