attendance

[Bombers798891]

"The  year-over-year high attendance can't really be manufactured with gameday promotions IYAM...that stuff will fizzle.  It has to happen organically and be part of the culture." 

Well put

[Pat Coleman]

I would be very interested to compare schools by their student body size to their attendance at games and see what schools are clearly above or below.

http://stats.ncaa.org/reports/attendance?id=15320
It doesn't have the enrollment figures but it does include stadium size.

Enrollments are corralled neatly here.

They get those figures from the Department of Education.  But those don't always tell the whole story.  There are schools like Buena Vista that have off campus centers.  BVU gets counted as having 1,800 students by the Department of Education when what they actually have on campus in Storm Lake is around 800.  Of course, BVU is probably the outlier there, and those figures D3football has are probably mostly accurate within a couple hundred either way.

There are not many of these in Division III at all, in fact.

[hsbsballcoach7]

I guess I should've also included an asterisk with my Mount Union comment because many students do support the team, but leave after the 1st or 2nd quarter bc it's not entertaining. Most other athletic teams are working concession stands or other game details to earn money for their program. I have also attended basketball games and many UMU students attend, most which are football players.

When I attended UMU, we were told that we had the highest percentage of intramural participation in all Ohio schools and that's bc most of Mount Unions enrollment does come to UMU to play a sport initially.

I say that to say this. Your college community needs to have a culture of supporting athletics, like mentioned before or there won't be attendance.

[albatross]

When I played at Hendrix we had a huge showing for our inaugural game. Alumni from all over the country showed up. When we miraculously won, a few even cried. Football for recent start-ups in the South like Hendrix and Berry can really reinvigorate the alumni base. Football games became a huge draw since Hendrix really only does class reunions (there is no homecoming).

I was on the SAAC (a committee of student athletes at every NCAA school that works to improve athletics, advocate for athletes, and votes on NCAA rules) and we made plans to have student athletes support each other at the very least. Sometimes this included creating a master calendar of sorts to figure out which sport viewed which match as the biggest upcoming one for them and we would go and cheer - from swimming all the way down to field hockey.

For liberal arts colleges, you have to get non-athletic allies though. Student Senate lets different groups and student organizations sign up to host tailgates, charities hold events near the baseball fields, and for rivalry games others sold shirts.

[HSCTiger fan]

Hampden Sydney regularly ranks in top 5 in attendance.  No promotions. No halftime contests. No band.  No cheerleaders.  Up until 2 seasons ago no souvenir sales. Heck the even book store was closed by game time.

What they do have is rediculous tailgating before, during and after games. They are also centrally located in the ODAC and that helps with visiting fans. It's an awesome atmosphere.