SEC Attendance Numbers Show Who’s Supporting Their Schools And Who Isn’t

 Send This Story To A Friend

The NCAA has released the attendance figures for the 2010 football season and once again the SEC dominates nationally.  Six of the Top 10 most attended stadiums are located on SEC ground — Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, LSU, Florida and Auburn.

In terms of average attendance per game, here are the final numbers and national rankings for each SEC program:

Impressive.  But that’s not a pure gauge of fan support.  Remember, those are paid attendance figures, not turnstile counts.  Schools can sell out their tickets and not fill up their stadiums on a week-to-week basis.

A better measure for how well fanbases are supporting their schools — via ticket sales — is the “percent capacity” statistic.  Below you’ll see which schools’ fans bought up the highest percentage of tickets available:

This still doesn’t account for the number of fans who showed up late (Kentucky), left early (Ole Miss) or failed to fill their stadium at all (Tennessee).  But until schools start releasing actual turnstile numbers, we’ll never know that data.  (Sidenote: The schools will never release turnstile numbers.)

As far as moving forward, expect attendance and those percent-capacity numbers to rise next season at Florida, LSU, Mississippi State, Auburn, Tennessee, Arkansas and South Carolina.  Offseason excitement should lead to more tickets sold heading into 2011.

Expect decreases at Georgia, Kentucky and Ole Miss. 

As for Alabama and Vanderbilt — it’s hard to get much higher than 110% of capacity filled, so here’s guessing Bama’s at about that same number next year.  And despite James Franklin’s energy, it’s likely Vandy fans will take a wait and see approach with their “Who’d they hire?” coach before snapping up tickets.