"Florida Football: Is reducing capacity in The Swamp a good idea?"

Yep, geeks don’t do football. Maybe they should stick to trying to run on3

 

The truth of the matter is that fewer people are willing to invest the time and money to attend a game. This is the trend in all sport, largely due to HDTV. Another truth is that there's more money to be made by limiting the number of available seats, especially if you make the seats bigger and more comfortable.

The days of selling out every non cupcake home games (even most conference games) in big college football stadiums is probably over. If you look at just about every P5 stadium during the games these days and there are almost always a lot of empty seats. It's the same in most NFL, MLB and every other major sport. The average fan prefers to watch from home or a sports bar. I don't think that adding shade, wider concourses and better concessions is going to put 90K butts in the Swamp. The trend in stadiums is to reduce capacity and improve the game experience by having more comfortable seating and a better experience.

I've mentioned this before in other threads, but one of the things that major programs have realized over the last 10-20 years is that there's a whole lot more money to be made by limiting the number of tickets available and "charging" alumni contributions for the right to buy those season tickets than there will ever be in the ticket sales. If supply is higher than demand, the school lose all that extra alumni contribution revenue.

 

My great niece was a freshman last year. I saw pictures on Facebook of her and her friends. They attended every home game and Jax. She was a high school cheerleader, squad was state champs 4x. Maybe it's a Friday night lights thing and she just associates football with school.

 

Spot on analysis. Very well said.

 

Definitely agree with this idea. But how much more money is to be made?

 

I fully support reducing capacity. I think the days of high demand for tickets is over. The boomer generation is slowly moving out of the market. People today are less tolerant of paying high prices to be jammed in on metal bleachers assigned to seats sized for a child.

 

That’s heartwarming and I’m sure there are still students like your niece at UF. She sounds like my idea of a model student and person. But I’m inclined to agree with wingtrees post that the makeup of our student body has changed over the years to include more students who are less likely to bleed Orange and Blue for our football teams.
Trends can change. Wouldn’t hurt my feelings one bit if we admitted more young people like your niece.

 

The student section was as good this season as it has been in many, many years.....they were loud, arrived by kickoff, and stayed till the game was decided. Even in the heydays they arrived way late and left early.
I've got 5 decades of perspective, and there was nothing wrong with the student crowd in 2022. I wish the alumni side had been that full and engaged.

 

That for sure is one aspect of what is going on. I’m 55, when I was a kid in the early 70s, almost everyone I knew played organize football baseball and basketball. Kids today do not do that. The vast majority of fans are people who formerly played whatever sport it is that they attend. Very few kids today play football I have six boys. One of them played football four of them play baseball and none of them played basketball. Those are the fans that you want supporting your sport for the next couple decades? The fan base is not going to be the same anymore .
Now, as far as our generation attending games, we are getting older, and we are the ones with the money. It cost me about two grand to drive into Gainesville get a room for two nights and attend a game. I would still much rather be at the swamp been in any sports bar or my living room, but I cannot afford to watch all our home games in Gainesville. It would cost me 10 grand a year.

 

How is your opinion “the truth of the matter”.? Are you Nostradamus?
The Swamp will sell out every game even against Powderpuff U. when we start winning again. We did so even before the HBC started winning championships.
People want to see exciting football and until recently, the Gators were almost always a blast to watch.
The morons are in control ruining everything now: canceling Gator Growl and piping unbearably loud crap “music” through the game to try to appeal to little kids and dolts. Two of my buddies are long time Gator boosters who went to home games last year and both left saying it’s no fun anymore. It’s all about the look-at-me fans trying to get on tv and not the players. Sad.

 

While wading thru and standing in 3 inches of water while taking a leak. More water on the floor of the men's room than flows thru the water fountains all game.

 

You sure that's water you're wading through?

 

are you talking about the replay boards? I would think the “look at me fans trying to get on tv” would be yelling and screaming, which is what we want the Swamp to be.

 

Disagree. @wingtee is a huge geek and rocks some football watchin'.

 

Watch it man, wing is going to bust you up

 

Ehh . . . wing and I have an understanding.

 

Not in the face?

 

Considering the avg weight of a woman over 20 years old is 170 lbs and 200 lbs for a man. Not many are fitting into the spaces on the bleachers comfortably.

 

Wut..huh.."gentrification"?