Football Attendance for 2012

[MDZip]

Dave,

I am most impressed by someone who actually gets the Zipmeister involved in a serious, thoughtful discussion.

[Zipmeister]

@Zipmeister, we have some common ground here based on your response to Doug Snyder. I don't disagree with anything you said concerning schools following NCAA rules about reporting paid attendance.

I agree that some of these practices may appear deceptive to those who consider legitimate paid attendance to only include single ticket sales and not blocks of tickets. Of course, block ticket sales have always been a part of sporting events without a lot of people being aware of it. But it becomes more obvious to more people when large blocks of tickets are included in sponsorship packages, and few fans show up at games due to lack of interest in a losing team. Then there's a big and obvious gap between official paid attendance and actual butts in seats.

There would be no IRS problems for any non-tax-exempt organization reporting this on their tax return. It would only present a tax problem if the amount of money earned from paid ticket sales was underreported.

Back to square one. Tax exempt organizations do not report paid attendance on a tax return.

I quit.

[Doug Snyder]

I never said schools prefer to lie about student attendance at sporting events. It is simply one tool in their numbers fudging arsenal, and it happens with great regularity at schools struggling to stay qualified at the DI level (or by some hoping to appear to be a "bigger time" program than they actually are). It is particularly easy to make up supporting documents, if required, for this particular trick. Schools would prefer that someone give them cash that they can use to count as sold tickets. Using your example, kind of. Given a $100,000 donation, a school whose most expensive season tickets cost $24 (now that's a bargain) could pretend that they sold 12,500 season tickets at $8 per.

8*12,500*6= $600,000. I have an MBA in Finance and can't figure out your math. Help me out.

My example is 8.00 (Cost of ticket) /3 (Mininimum required by NCAA) * 6 (# of home games in season ticket) * 6,250 = $100,000

Or am I fabricating too??

[Dave in Green]

@Zipmeister, at this point I can no longer tell if you're being serious or playing one of your typical jokes. I've tried my best to clearly acknowledge points here that you will not acknowledge that I've acknowledged. But I can't control how you interpret my words. So we appear to be locked in an endless loop.

If you're serious, please show me a direct quote from any of my last few posts that suggests I believe that tax-exempt organizations are required to report paid attendance on a tax return.

If you're joking, then "I quit" would make a good ending to this discussion.

[Zipmeister]

I never said schools prefer to lie about student attendance at sporting events. It is simply one tool in their numbers fudging arsenal, and it happens with great regularity at schools struggling to stay qualified at the DI level (or by some hoping to appear to be a "bigger time" program than they actually are). It is particularly easy to make up supporting documents, if required, for this particular trick. Schools would prefer that someone give them cash that they can use to count as sold tickets. Using your example, kind of. Given a $100,000 donation, a school whose most expensive season tickets cost $24 (now that's a bargain) could pretend that they sold 12,500 season tickets at $8 per.

8*12,500*6= $600,000. I have an MBA in Finance and can't figure out your math. Help me out.

My example is 8.00 (Cost of ticket) /3 (Mininimum required by NCAA) * 6 (# of home games in season ticket) * 6,250 = $100,000

Or am I fabricating too??

100,000 / 8 =12,500

you assumed the most expensive ticket was $8, I assumed the most expensive ticket was $24.

you showed tickets per game, I showed tickets for the season.

[Doug Snyder]

I never said schools prefer to lie about student attendance at sporting events. It is simply one tool in their numbers fudging arsenal, and it happens with great regularity at schools struggling to stay qualified at the DI level (or by some hoping to appear to be a "bigger time" program than they actually are). It is particularly easy to make up supporting documents, if required, for this particular trick. Schools would prefer that someone give them cash that they can use to count as sold tickets. Using your example, kind of. Given a $100,000 donation, a school whose most expensive season tickets cost $24 (now that's a bargain) could pretend that they sold 12,500 season tickets at $8 per.

8*12,500*6= $600,000. I have an MBA in Finance and can't figure out your math. Help me out.

My example is 8.00 (Cost of ticket) /3 (Mininimum required by NCAA) * 6 (# of home games in season ticket) * 6,250 = $100,000

Or am I fabricating too??

100,000 / 8 =12,500

you assumed the most expensive ticket was $8, I assumed the most expensive ticket was $24.

you showed tickets per game, I showed tickets for the season.

You may have showed tickets for a season but you wrote "12,500 season tickets". You may be correct that you are required to use the highest ticket price in the stadium. That would be $25.00 if you exclude the mandatory Z-fund fee. The way I read it is that you must use the highest regular established ticket price for a seat…they can’t be discounted or specially priced for a specific game. I don’t have the answer…and I really don’t care. The point is still the same. Rational/intelligent people will use this approach to increase attendance (totally legal and within the NCAA rules) rather than to blatantly lie and make things up with no documentation to support the fraud.

http://www.gozips.com/UAtickets/2011fbtickets/index

[bobbyake]

I'm amazed people are defending the announced 14,000+ attendance figures but could care less. If this is what Akron has to do to keep D1A status then we should all look the other way.

We all know the truth, actual attendance is very low and the worst it's been in a long time.

[tbozeglav]

I'm amazed people are defending the announced 14,000+ attendance figures but could care less. If this is what Akron has to do to keep D1A status then we should all look the other way.

We all know the truth, actual attendance is very low and the worst it's been in a long time.

I agree. Given the current state of affairs with this team, we should be thankful we're still D1A (FBS or whatever the hell its called now). Hopefully things will turn around soon enough that we won't have to worry about attendance... but we all know that wont happen until a few "changes" are made...

[Dave in Green]

I'm amazed people are defending the announced 14,000+ attendance figures .....

I'm not sure that anyone here is "defending" the concept of paid attendance as much as acknowledging the reality of currently accepted English language usage. To be precise:

Paid attendance is defined as seats sold.

Actual attendance is defined as seats filled.

So, yeah, UA could have sold 14,000+ seat tickets by providing many thousands of tickets in exchange for sponsorship dollars to go along with a few thousand individual ticket sales. And that fits the current definition of paid attendance.

Now, if you want to debate how accurate the definition of paid attendance is, there would be many on your side, including me.

Attendance suggests that someone actually attended the game. I personally think that paid attendance is a misleading term if people don't actually attend and fill the seats that were purchased. If it were me, I'd change "paid attendance" to "ticket sales," and reserve "attendance" for the actual number of people who attend the game, i.e. butts in seats.

But by the currently accepted definition of paid attendance, I would defend UA's right to claim 14,000+ if they actually sold a combination of 14,000+ tickets to individuals and sponsors as part of sponsorship packages.

[skip-zip]

I'm amazed people are defending the announced 14,000+ attendance figures but could care less. If this is what Akron has to do to keep D1A status then we should all look the other way.

We all know the truth, actual attendance is very low and the worst it's been in a long time.

Bobby,

First, I want to again tell you that I commend you for your avid suport of our soccer program. But, regardless of what you said in one of your previous comments about getting very few "no shows" in soccer, I want to share both my observations, and some things that I know to be true.

We're you at both the Cleveland State (5,300 tickets "sold") and Ohio State (5,800 tickets "sold") soccer games? I was at both games. The first game was in perfect weather. The second one was cooler and rainy. At the first game, I couldn't move while trying to find a place to stand in the East corners. At the 2nd game, I had plenty of room to move around and found plenty of room to sit in those areas at breaks. So, why was the "announced" attendance higher in the second game? Because we surely counted tickets "sold", same as we do with football.

I, alone, personally have knowledge of more than a dozen tickets that weren't used on Wednesday night. One friend could not use one of his two reserved tickets because his spouse had a work obligation. Another friend had a decent block of tickets, and could not give most of them away, despite sending out e-mails to everyone he knows on Monday and Tuesday. My neighbor has 2 season GA tickets, and did not go because of the threat of rain. And I had purchased 4 tickets, and only used 2 of them.

There's plenty of no-shows that do not subtract from the attendance that can be announced, in both sports. Sure, this is certainly a much more obvious problem in football, partially because you are dealing with a much higher amount of ticket sales, and partially because the problem appears to be bigger in that sport. But, to point out that soccer has few no-shows would not be true, especially as the weather continues to deteriorate.

[bobbyake]

I'm amazed people are defending the announced 14,000+ attendance figures but could care less. If this is what Akron has to do to keep D1A status then we should all look the other way.

We all know the truth, actual attendance is very low and the worst it's been in a long time.

Bobby,

First, I want to again tell you that I commend you for your avid suport of our soccer program. But, regardless of what you said in one of your previous comments about getting very few "no shows" in soccer, I want to share both my observations, and some things that I know to be true.

We're you at both the Cleveland State (5,300 tickets "sold") and Ohio State (5,800 tickets "sold") soccer games? I was at both games. The first game was in perfect weather. The second one was cooler and rainy. At the first game, I couldn't move while trying to find a place to stand in the East corners. At the 2nd game, I had plenty of room to move around and found plenty of room to sit in those areas at breaks. So, why was the "announced" attendance higher in the second game? Because we surely counted tickets "sold", same as we do with football.

I, alone, personally have knowledge of more than a dozen tickets that weren't used on Wednesday night. One friend could not use one of his two reserved tickets because his spouse had a work obligation. Another friend had a decent block of tickets, and could not give most of them away, despite sending out e-mails to everyone he knows on Monday and Tuesday. My neighbor has 2 season GA tickets, and did not go because of the threat of rain. And I had purchased 4 tickets, and only used 2 of them.

There's plenty of no-shows that do not subtract from the attendance that can be announced, in both sports. Sure, this is certainly a much more obvious problem in football, partially because you are dealing with a much higher amount of ticket sales, and partially because the problem appears to be bigger in that sport. But, to point out that soccer has few no-shows would not be true, especially as the weather continues to deteriorate.

I think I mentioned before that I agree with you but think that soccer probably gets 90% or more of tickets sold to be used while football right now is probably less than 45%.

I've been to every men's soccer game this year. I honestly think the OSU game was a lot more crowded than the first game. I've never seen the grass section as packed as it was. I took videos of the crowd for both games and can upload them if you want to compare them.

The fact that this topic is being debated so much is a sign that the University has a poor way of calculating attendance. It would be much easier if they went by actual attendance and there would be no debate here. If they have to come up with a clever but legit way to increase the number to save face, then I will look the other way.

[Dave in Green]

I think I mentioned before that I agree with you but think that soccer probably gets 90% or more of tickets sold to be used while football right now is probably less than 45%.

I've been to every men's soccer game this year. I honestly think the OSU game was a lot more crowded than the first game. I've never seen the grass section as packed as it was. I took videos of the crowd for both games and can upload them if you want to compare them.

The fact that this topic is being debated so much is a sign that the University has a poor way of calculating attendance. It would be much easier if they went by actual attendance and there would be no debate here. If they have to come up with a clever but legit way to increase the number to save face, then I will look the other way.

The only point I disagree with you on is singling out UA as if they calculate attendance differently than most others. In fact, UA calculates attendance in a similar way to how most other sports and entertainment event attendance is calculated.

That's why this subject is a common point of discussion on sports forums across the country representing every type of college and professional sport.

Heck, I've even seen sports writers joke in newspaper articles about the small number of spectators in seats compared with the high "official paid attendance" numbers announced.

This discrepancy becomes most glaring when a team has performed poorly for an extended period and more and more sold tickets go unused, which is obviously the current situation with Zips football.

I think that those who've lived in many different cities across the U.S. and followed many different sports teams over the years have an easier time understanding that this is not a unique UA problem.

It's a common result of the generally accepted way of announcing attendance.

[skip-zip]

I'm amazed people are defending the announced 14,000+ attendance figures but could care less. If this is what Akron has to do to keep D1A status then we should all look the other way.

We all know the truth, actual attendance is very low and the worst it's been in a long time.

Bobby,

First, I want to again tell you that I commend you for your avid suport of our soccer program. But, regardless of what you said in one of your previous comments about getting very few "no shows" in soccer, I want to share both my observations, and some things that I know to be true.

We're you at both the Cleveland State (5,300 tickets "sold") and Ohio State (5,800 tickets "sold") soccer games? I was at both games. The first game was in perfect weather. The second one was cooler and rainy. At the first game, I couldn't move while trying to find a place to stand in the East corners. At the 2nd game, I had plenty of room to move around and found plenty of room to sit in those areas at breaks. So, why was the "announced" attendance higher in the second game? Because we surely counted tickets "sold", same as we do with football.

I, alone, personally have knowledge of more than a dozen tickets that weren't used on Wednesday night. One friend could not use one of his two reserved tickets because his spouse had a work obligation. Another friend had a decent block of tickets, and could not give most of them away, despite sending out e-mails to everyone he knows on Monday and Tuesday. My neighbor has 2 season GA tickets, and did not go because of the threat of rain. And I had purchased 4 tickets, and only used 2 of them.

There's plenty of no-shows that do not subtract from the attendance that can be announced, in both sports. Sure, this is certainly a much more obvious problem in football, partially because you are dealing with a much higher amount of ticket sales, and partially because the problem appears to be bigger in that sport. But, to point out that soccer has few no-shows would not be true, especially as the weather continues to deteriorate.

I think I mentioned before that I agree with you but think that soccer probably gets 90% or more of tickets sold to be used while football right now is probably less than 45%.

I've been to every men's soccer game this year. I honestly think the OSU game was a lot more crowded than the first game. I've never seen the grass section as packed as it was. I took videos of the crowd for both games and can upload them if you want to compare them.

The fact that this topic is being debated so much is a sign that the University has a poor way of calculating attendance. It would be much easier if they went by actual attendance and there would be no debate here. If they have to come up with a clever but legit way to increase the number to save face, then I will look the other way.

You previously said, "at least 96%" in this thread, and I was trying not to call you out on that. But, I think you are at least getting closer to reality now. Your new 90% estimate would put Wednesday night at around 500-600 no shows, which seems like a fair estimate, based on my observations, and the amount of unused tickets that existed among people I know.

That will probably increase as the weather continues to deteriorate, and the local schools are no longer on our soccer schedule. Which also makes it so sad to think that the football issue with no shows will likely increase as well. How embarrasing.

[Doug Snyder]

If they have to come up with a clever but legit way to increase the number to save face, then I will look the other way.

My guess is that if we lost our D1 status because we did not find clever ways to keep the attendance numbers high enough to meet D1 requirements...many here would crucify the administration....not just look the other way. I can understand your frustration because it is impossible to make cross sport comparisons. But...keep in mind that does not even make the priority list for the administration. Keeping D1 status does. Ask Keith Dambrot...I am sure he will tell you the marketing department is so focused on this mission that the basketball program is overlooked or the marketing department are a little burned out by the time they get to basketball. Luckily...soccer does not need to be marketed. That is the real shame in all of this....the amount of effort and focus that it required of the administration to assure we keep D1 status.

You will have to settle for the fact that almost anybody on the soccer team could beat the kickers we have on the football team.

[UADavid]

The fact that this topic is being debated so much is a sign that the University has a poor way of calculating attendance. It would be much easier if they went by actual attendance and there would be no debate here. If they have to come up with a clever but legit way to increase the number to save face, then I will look the other way.

You have reached your Jake moment. Everyone understands your position. I believe the university is following the proper procedure for disclosing attendance figures as currently outlined by the NCAA. Perhaps you should bring up this discussion with them. @DIG Your observations about paid and actual attendance is correct. They should mandate both figures in the official box scores. I believe Akron would have a hard time doing so. At soccer matches, the scanner at the gate I enter never works. They always tear the stub.

[ZachTheZip]

The fact that this topic is being debated at all is a sign of how naive our fanbase is. EVERY school reports paid attendance. Sometimes paid attendance matches up to actual attendance pretty well, sometime it doesn't. But if you think that ANY school reports less than the maximum number allowed by the NCAA you're incredibly foolish.

Why are we even discussing this?

[skip-zip]

The fact that this topic is being debated at all is a sign of how naive our fanbase is. EVERY school reports paid attendance. Sometimes paid attendance matches up to actual attendance pretty well, sometime it doesn't. But if you think that ANY school reports less than the maximum number allowed by the NCAA you're incredibly foolish.

Why are we even discussing this?

Good point. I do recall someone implying that maybe schools choose which allowable method they want to use. No they don't. They chose the one that allows their numbers to be the highest, and I can't think that any method comes out higher than tickets sold. That goes for football, soccer, or basketball.

[Dave in Green]

I like to look at these types of discussions as opportunities to educate other people who may not have the experience to understand how something works. No one knows it all. But a large group of people who share knowledge can know more than any one person. Sometimes it takes a little patience to explain things in an understandable way.

[Spin]

Our enrollment is almost 30,000, and we pay a facility feee. And students get in football games.

Does that count as 30,000 season tickets sold?

[Dave in Green]

@Spin, obviously not as UA has never claimed a 30k+ paid attendance at any football game.

Do students have to show an i.d. or something to get in? If they scan a student card, for example, they may have an actual number for students and add that to all the tickets that were sold to individuals plus the ones that went to sponsors as part of paid sponsorship packages.

That's just my best guess. Hopefully, someone in the know can share with us how students are actually counted for the official attendance.

[ZachTheZip]

You have to scan your student ID in order to get in to a game.

[bobbyake]

I went ahead and updated the 1st page of this with the new results. For anyone that is interested, the Zips have improved over last year by 19% and are having their 5th best year over the past 10 years.

This is the progress Ianello is always talking about, they're figuring out better ways to fudge the numbers.

[bobbyake]

1st page is updated with this chart:

Attendance is up 25% this year over last year.

[bobbyake]

Final average attendance for the year: 15,734 (54.5% increase over last year!!!!!!)

The final home game official attendance was 19,899, which is the best over the past 2 years, the 3rd best over the past 4.

Despite Akron's poor results on the field, official attendance has been extremely good this year. A 54.5% increase is a huge positive. Go Zips!!

[Z.I.P.]

Final average attendance for the year: 15,734 (54.5% increase over last year!!!!!!)

The final home game official attendance was 19,899, which is the best over the past 2 years, the 3rd best over the past 4.

Despite Akron's poor results on the field, official attendance has been extremely good this year. A 54.5% increase is a huge positive. Go Zips!!

Please tell me you're joking, right? What was the ACTUAL attendance today?