Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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in the trenches andrew owens Protecting The Full House Attendance across college football — especially in student sections — has decreased the past few years, but Notre Dame's continues to hold strong. C ollege football is more popular today than it has ever been. The interest has never been higher, and the money involved has never been greater. The College Football Playoff, set to be introduced in 2014, will raise revenues to unprecedented levels. Despite those factors, a perplexing question has emerged across the country, regardless of region, conference or success rate: Where are the fans? When you combine the growth in technology that has created an unmatched viewing experience at home in front of high-definition, flat-screen televisions with the soaring ticket prices in recent years (look no further than Michigan's dynamic ticket pricing that bases prices on the current photo by bill panzica market value), fans are opting for their couches over the bleachers in droves. The Wall Street Journal recently published an article looking into why fans — specifically students — avoid the stadium, and it used the University of Georgia as its example. According to the article, students left 39 percent of their allocated seats empty during the past four seasons. Despite having an allocation of 18,000 seats, not once between 2009 and 2012 did more than 15,000 students show up. The plague extends further than just Georgia. Even at Alabama, often held up as the shining example of passionate fans, students can't be bothered with attending the whole game. Head