Thoughts on 2025 Football Attendance

[JackJD]

SDSU home football attendance so far reported in game box scores:
Sacramento State 19163
Drake 19213
Total so far: 38,376:

Some seats were not occupied for those games but the games were sold out. There are explanations for some of the open seats. For example, we have four season tickets but for the Sac State game, only two were used. Another example, there were quite a few fans, each of whom had a ticket, watching the game from the balcony or inside the Steigelmeier Family Student Athletic Center. Those fans would have been counted as they entered the stadium but their seats in the stands would be empty. We had a very good student crowd for most of the game.

The Drake game also had some open seats but was reported as sold out. Again, a lot of fans were watching from the Steigelmeier Center so that would account for some open seats. I had family coming and had difficulty finding 9 additional tickets.which ultimately required I purchase two tickets on Seat Geek. There were not many tickets available on Seat Geek. The student section was essentially full at the start of the game.

SDSU's remaining home games:
Sept 27 Mercyhurst GreenDot reported on 9/17/25 that zero tickets were available.
Oct 11 UNI Hobo Day...always huge attendance in recent years. Green dot has shown for weeks that no tickets are available.
Oct 25 NDSU The Dakota Marker Game...another huge game. On Sept 2, GreenDot reported no tickets were available for the NDSU game.
Nov 1 Indiana State Last Green dot report I saw was from Sept 16 when GreenDot reported 3040 seats available. Based on the GreenDot report (which so far has been quite accurate), the seats sold indicates attendance of 16,300.
Nov 12 Illinois State Last GreenDot report I saw was Sept 18 when 3782 seats were available. 19,340 - 3782 = 15,558.

Compare to our friends in Vermillion. I watched much of the Drake at USD game on TV today. The few times I noted the TV cameras showed the fans in the stands, I thought there were a lot of unoccupied chairs. The official Drake Box Score on Goyotes.com listed game attendance at 7441. The box score for the Northern Colorado game at USD listed attendance as 6445. Those are not good numbers and do not bode well for USD's budget. The Dakota Dome's seating capacity for football is listed as 9100 in Wikipedia. USD has the following remaining home games:
Oct 4 Murray State
Oct 25 Illinois State
Nov 1 UND
Nov 8 SDSU (three days ago, GreenDot listed 1,117 available tickets).

Assume USD sells out the remaining home schedule. If that assumption turned out to be accurate, USD's 2025 reported season attendance at USD would be:
UNC 6445
Drake 7441
Murray 9100
IL State 9100
UND 9100
SDSU 9100
Projected total: 50,286

Compare: Take SDSU's reported attendance for two homes games, 38,376, and add to that a sellout crowd for the third home game, Mercyhurst.:
First two games: 38,376
MercyHurst: 19,340
Projected total after three home games: 57,716.
And I think we'll have essentially a full stadium for each of the remaining four games after the Mercyhurst game.

Those numbers for USD are dismal. I hope I made a math error.

[discoDancinRabbit]

Not to undermine the work you put in but comparing us to USDs attendance is low hanging fruit.

Ive checked NDSUs home game and the nearby mountain states and the numbers range from 17,000 (ndsu) to 26,000 (montana)

[jakejc795]

Not to undermine the work you put in but comparing us to USDs attendance is low hanging fruit.

Ive checked NDSUs home game and the nearby mountain states and the numbers range from 17,000 (ndsu) to 26,000 (montana)

I'm with you. The only real time I'd worry about 'Yote attendance issues is if "we" (SD taxpayers) are asked to help them recoup any losses incurred by inability to pay 'dome renovation debts.

JackJD, your "GreenDot Report" is reassuring. Hopefully that trend would continue for any Jacks home playoff games.

Speaking of attendance, I'd asked about plans to "reallocate" season ticket locations when Athletics was doing that for Frost/FB&T, and it sounded like that was probably 3-5 years away. Anyone heard more recent news on that front?

[JackJD]

Not to undermine the work you put in but comparing us to USDs attendance is low hanging fruit.

Ive checked NDSUs home game and the nearby mountain states and the numbers range from 17,000 (ndsu) to 26,000 (montana)

Lol. It seemed somewhat noteworthy that the fans of a ranked MVFC team won't fill a 9100-seat stadium.

[bigticket1]

SDSU home football attendance so far reported in game box scores:
Sacramento State 19163
Drake 19213
Total so far: 38,376:

Some seats were not occupied for those games but the games were sold out. There are explanations for some of the open seats. For example, we have four season tickets but for the Sac State game, only two were used. Another example, there were quite a few fans, each of whom had a ticket, watching the game from the balcony or inside the Steigelmeier Family Student Athletic Center. Those fans would have been counted as they entered the stadium but their seats in the stands would be empty. We had a very good student crowd for most of the game.

The Drake game also had some open seats but was reported as sold out. Again, a lot of fans were watching from the Steigelmeier Center so that would account for some open seats. I had family coming and had difficulty finding 9 additional tickets.which ultimately required I purchase two tickets on Seat Geek. There were not many tickets available on Seat Geek. The student section was essentially full at the start of the game.

SDSU's remaining home games:
Sept 27 Mercyhurst GreenDot reported on 9/17/25 that zero tickets were available.
Oct 11 UNI Hobo Day...always huge attendance in recent years. Green dot has shown for weeks that no tickets are available.
Oct 25 NDSU The Dakota Marker Game...another huge game. On Sept 2, GreenDot reported no tickets were available for the NDSU game.
Nov 1 Indiana State Last Green dot report I saw was from Sept 16 when GreenDot reported 3040 seats available. Based on the GreenDot report (which so far has been quite accurate), the seats sold indicates attendance of 16,300.
Nov 12 Illinois State Last GreenDot report I saw was Sept 18 when 3782 seats were available. 19,340 - 3782 = 15,558.

Compare to our friends in Vermillion. I watched much of the Drake at USD game on TV today. The few times I noted the TV cameras showed the fans in the stands, I thought there were a lot of unoccupied chairs. The official Drake Box Score on Goyotes.com listed game attendance at 7441. The box score for the Northern Colorado game at USD listed attendance as 6445. Those are not good numbers and do not bode well for USD's budget. The Dakota Dome's seating capacity for football is listed as 9100 in Wikipedia. USD has the following remaining home games:
Oct 4 Murray State
Oct 25 Illinois State
Nov 1 UND
Nov 8 SDSU (three days ago, GreenDot listed 1,117 available tickets).

Assume USD sells out the remaining home schedule. If that assumption turned out to be accurate, USD's 2025 reported season attendance at USD would be:
UNC 6445
Drake 7441
Murray 9100
IL State 9100
UND 9100
SDSU 9100
Projected total: 50,286

Compare: Take SDSU's reported attendance for two homes games, 38,376, and add to that a sellout crowd for the third home game, Mercyhurst.:
First two games: 38,376
MercyHurst: 19,340
Projected total after three home games: 57,716.
And I think we'll have essentially a full stadium for each of the remaining four games after the Mercyhurst game.

Those numbers for USD are dismal. I hope I made a math error.

I did the Green Dot math on Sept. 9th. At that point, USD has sold 38,529 of 54,600 available for the season, or 70.5 % of capacity. SDSU had sold 127,957 of 135,100 available, which is 94.7 % of capacity. That's almost a 90,000 difference. If you multiply that by even $30/ticket (which is probably conservative), you come up with nearly $3 million in added revenue.

[JimmieTuba]

Not to undermine the work you put in but comparing us to USDs attendance is low hanging fruit.

Ive checked NDSUs home game and the nearby mountain states and the numbers range from 17,000 (ndsu) to 26,000 (montana)

A better way to compare attendance with USD would be percentage full. The seating capacity discrepancy will not allow for a proper comparison.

[discoDancinRabbit]

A better way to compare attendance with USD would be percentage full. The seating capacity discrepancy will not allow for a proper comparison.

I mean it’s a total no-contest unless you give them that ratio advantage. Either way it’s clear their fans do not respond to football.

idk why they don’t go all in on basketball especially after building that brand new arena. Let football fall by the wayside if need be

[NorCalJack]

Well just for reference, in 2024 SDSU had total ticket sales of $6,530,836 and USD had $1,822,956. Of course that is for all sports, not just Football. For Student Fees, SDSU received $2,929,626 and USD received $2,708,290. So SDSU was 7.56% more than USD, but SDSU has about 20% more students. So SDSU must charge students less than USD. As for as government support, SDSU received $8,032,929 or 27% of total revenue and USD received $13,072,346 or 50% of total revenue.

[JackJD]

A better way to compare attendance with USD would be percentage full. The seating capacity discrepancy will not allow for a proper comparison.

I respectfully disagree a comparison of "percentage full" is a "proper comparison". [The percentage-full comparison still shows SDSU fan support is much stronger than USD's football fan support.] What if USD decided to reduce capacity by blocking off 3,000 seats so nearly every game is sold out. The problem I'm thinking about is revenue generation (see bigticket's post above). Think about First Bank Arena and compare it to Frost Arena when it was mostly bench seating and hosted several games when crowds exceeded 9,000 (I was there for those games!). The renovated First Bank Arena is a great venue and I think it is much more likely SDSU will have capacity or near capacity crowds in the newly-configured arena. We just weren't filling up Frost. I think the First Bank Arena has an excellent chance to generate more revenue than the most recent Frost configuration. Why? Having a facility that can draw near-capacity and a few capacity crowds will generate more interest which can lead to more fan support.

Discodancinrabbit questions why USD doesn't just go all-in on basketball and drop football. That's something I wouldn't want to see but the question seems fair. USD's football team is good. They were good last year and look capable again this year. The conference need teams like USD, UND, NDSU and SDSU to have a stable conference. UND has really improved its game. Other schools need to do the same or we'll see a program fade and eventually leave the MVFC (most recent example, Western Illinois). USD is playing well and it is hard to understand why their fan base isn't responding. If that continues, discodancinrabbit's suggestion about dropping football could be seriously considered. That would not be good for the MVFC or the Jacks. [Don't confuse that with wanting USD to do well when playing SDSU. Spanking the Coyotes is good fun. It's even better fun when they are good.]

[bigticket1]

Taking USD out of the picture for a minute, it's been beyond impressive how the Jacks fan base has supported this team. When all the s*it hit the fan right after Christmas, I know I wondered how this was going to affect fan support and attendance. It's been unbelievable how we have stepped up. Even after the two National Championship seasons, I don't think that we basically sold out the first 5 home games by the middle of September. And if the team keeps winning and the weather cooperates even a little, selling out the entire 7 home game schedule is a possibility. So if you're a ticket buyer, reach around and give yourself a pat on the back !

[JimmieTuba]

discoDancinRabbit - I get what you are saying, but then you are picking the numbers that look best for SDSU. There is a nuance to comparisons if you want to be fair.

JackJD - If USD were to do that, then it is manipulating the data in the same way selecting a statistic that favors one side does.

A fair comparison would be to use both total numbers and percentage full while noting the capacity discrepancy. Then we can discuss why there is the discrepancy and why that matters.

Now, if you just want to poke USD for having lower attendance, ignore my engineering mind and enjoy

[Prairiehaas]

To summarize attendance; SDSU 99.2% of 19,340 capacity, USD 76.3% of 9,100 capacity.

Might lend light (along with the difference in student fees and government support noted by NorCalJack) for the difference in football program budgets of the two schools; SDSU $9.6M, USD $5.4M.

[discoDancinRabbit]

discoDancinRabbit - I get what you are saying, but then you are picking the numbers that look best for SDSU. There is a nuance to comparisons if you want to be fair.

JackJD - If USD were to do that, then it is manipulating the data in the same way selecting a statistic that favors one side does.

A fair comparison would be to use both total numbers and percentage full while noting the capacity discrepancy. Then we can discuss why there is the discrepancy and why that matters.

Now, if you just want to poke USD for having lower attendance, ignore my engineering mind and enjoy

Well I agree that there is something good about building a certain capacity that fits with the number of people that come to watch games. It would be off if Dykhouse had 40,000 seats even if attendance was the same.

[filbert]

SDSU has had a solid 21 years of D-1 football success (two losing 5-6 seasons as of three games into season 22) with two D-1 national championships. Total (to date) winning percentage is .695.

USD in 18 years have had nine losing seasons including 2 10-loss seasons, and a D-1 era winning percentage of .448. So, losing seasons for half of their D-1 existence, and a sub-.500 overall mark.

So my first point is that it takes time to build a fan base. SDSU wasn't selling out multiple home games in DJD until after the national championship years. Fan bases require extended, consistent, high level success in order to reliably grow. Give USD five years of top-of-FCS success and they'll have a larger fan base.

Second, the DakotaDome is, as Prairiehaas notes above, (and considering the current the top tier of FCS), a rather small facility. Of the current top 10, only Rhode Island (6,555) is smaller. For the FCS level of football, in-stadium attendance matters a lot for a program's bottom line, so the DakotaDome will be, to some extent, a limiting factor on USD's ongoing football success.

And, one last note: SDSU's fall 2024 undergraduate head count enrollment was 10,633, USD's was 7,619. SDSU having ~30% larger undergraduate enrollment makes a significant difference in the size of a fan base when you spread it out over the course of years.

[Prairiehaas]

As Filbert explains above, Dakota Dome size is a limiting factor to USD program success. The dome was built on a shoe string budget with no plan for expansion. Expanding that facility will be very expensive.

All of which brings one back to discoDancin's question. I don't see that as a viable option for the USD administration. There are many, many USD alumni that recall the "glory" days of USD football in the '80s and will not tolerate letting football fall to the wayside. At least not while SDSU and to a lesser extent NDSU and UND are competitive in the sport.