HISTORY: Cardinal Stadium Attendance Evaluation

Mark BlankenbakerAugust 15, 2018

2017 was the lowest attended season of Louisville Cardinal Football since the stadium expanded to 55,000 in 2010 with an average attendance of 46,159. The trend was striking because the Cards played the entire 2017 season WITH Lamar Jackson who had won the 2016 Heisman Trophy a year earlier. The 2016 season, by comparison, was the highest average stadium attendance in Cardinal Stadium History at 54,065 in the stands each game.

There are several factors that contributed to UofL’s slip in attendance in 2017.

1) UofL’s 1st home game was Week 3 of the season and the Cards were beaten badly by Clemson 47-21 and followed up that performance with 2 uninspiring opponents in Kent State & Murray State. In most years UofL’s home opener has been a weaker opponent with high caliber opponents coming later. In 2017 UofL started out big and didn’t get their ‘opener bump’ against lesser opponents.

2) Louisville Athletics overall suffered in 2017-18 with attendance down overall within the program as the FBI scandal permeated negativity throughout the fanbase.

3) Attendance is down overall throughout the country in live sporting events as a result of a better television experience and a steady increase in the cost to attend a game live.

4) The Syracuse game weather was abysmal. The forecast for gameday was terrible all week and the meteorologists were correct and fans had to take cover for a weather delay. When the game was being played it was windy and rainy throughout for a mid-November contest. The 34,265 in attendance is the lowest for a UofL Football game since the final year of the Steve Kragthorpe era.

2017’s Regression Was Interruption of Steady Growth

Louisville Football prior to 2017 had been the beneficiary of relatively sustained growth of about 4.23% per year from 1998-2016 and the 2016 season was the 3rd season ever that the Cards had at least 50,000 in attendance for each game on its schedule.

Even if the Syracuse bad weather game had been omitted (bad opponent + bad weather = bad attendance) UofL still would have raised UofL’s average attendance to just 48,538 which would have only been better than the 2011 since the stadium was expanded in 2010.

Moving forward UofL will clearly grow in attendance in 2018 for no other reason than the capacity and availability of tickets will increase by 6,000. Cardinal Stadium will now hold 61,000 when it opens vs. Indiana State and hopefully the Cards will get a benefit of the ‘opener bump’ in Game 2 of 2018 being the first in the newly expanded stadium and the second home game of the season will be against in-state Western Kentucky before hosting Florida State.

	2017	2016	2015	2014	2013
	55588	53127	50019	55428	55332
	47812	55632	55396	50179	53647
	47826	55121	50121	51463	51586
	44679	55218	41486	50227	55168
	46787	51218	46158	55414	55215
	34265	54075	51233	55118	53027
					46421

Total	276957	324391	294413	317829	370396
Average	46159.5	54065.2	49068.8	52971.5	52913.71

	2012	2011	2010	2009	2008
	55386	46157	55327	39344	42696
	47553	47228	51427	39948	38694
	53334	53267	48427	37268	42208
	50167	48435	55106	21497	42523
	53271	44817	48591	33223	38319
	44609	51321	43887	23422	40384
	45618	–	51772	–	37822
	–	–	–	–	34796
Total	349938	291225	354537	194702	317442
Average	49991.14	48537.5	50648.14	32450.33	39680.25


	2007	2006	2005	2004	2003
	42185	42597	42647	42681	40205
	40882	42704	40219	40220	38489
	40922	41549	41334	42032	40432
	40894	43217	42692	40107	38119
	34792	40348	41219	37617	30114
	39612	38476	37896	–	33268
	–	–	–	–	–
	–	–	–	–	–
Total	239287	248891	246007	202657	220627
Average	39881.17	41481.83	41001.17	40531.4	36771.17


	2002	2001	2000	1999	1998
	42660	38129	42510	38147	42643
	38109	35214	41227	40332	38231
	34127	39256	38121	41214	35479
	32428	39389	39233	33879	39247
	36253	33627	38024	27261	32649
	35261	40479	30387	34786	40349
	–	–	40328	41826	–
	–	–	–	–	–
Total	218838	226094	269830	257445	228598
Average	36473	37682.33	38547.14	36777.86	38099.67