"Students wonder whether it’s worth paying when you don’t know if your friends are going to go. When it might be 125º—or 25º, depending on your school—at kickoff. When you might be watching a blowout. When college is already so expensive that you’re facing decades of debt. When the academics are harder. When there have never been more cheaper entertainment options just a click away. Fans who aren’t in school ask many of the same questions.
"Before we hung up, Hoover recited reasons students didn’t give: “I didn’t hear anything about [traumatic brain injury]. I didn’t hear anything about the violence of the sport, didn’t hear that it was boring relative to other options, didn’t hear anybody complain about long timeouts for TV. The things people think. I never heard any student say those in my class.”
"Hoover’s comments drove home how when we talk about falling attendance in college football, it’s often speculation divorced from students’ actual lives. But this isn’t a referendum on kids these days. It’s a referendum on college these days, which affects college football these days. It sounds obvious, but what did you think would happen when students facing astronomical tuition bills were asked to pay more to watch less competitive games? Declining attendance isn’t a sign of moral weakness or a lack of emotional investment, it’s a sign of shifting realities."
For your consideration:
https://www.si.com/college/2020/01/10/college-football-attendance-decline-ncaa
"Before we hung up, Hoover recited reasons students didn’t give: “I didn’t hear anything about [traumatic brain injury]. I didn’t hear anything about the violence of the sport, didn’t hear that it was boring relative to other options, didn’t hear anybody complain about long timeouts for TV. The things people think. I never heard any student say those in my class.”
"Hoover’s comments drove home how when we talk about falling attendance in college football, it’s often speculation divorced from students’ actual lives. But this isn’t a referendum on kids these days. It’s a referendum on college these days, which affects college football these days. It sounds obvious, but what did you think would happen when students facing astronomical tuition bills were asked to pay more to watch less competitive games? Declining attendance isn’t a sign of moral weakness or a lack of emotional investment, it’s a sign of shifting realities."
For your consideration:
https://www.si.com/college/2020/01/10/college-football-attendance-decline-ncaa