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Attendance Numbers

For the oldheads, who could we play during a good but not great season and still pack JRS?

Noles and Gators, obviously.

Anybody else for sure?

Bama, UGA or LSU?

Irish, Buckeyes or Wolverines?
 
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hurricaneman said:
In the recent years we've been good, 2017 for example, we were top 25 in the country for attendance those years. We'll never be at Tennessee, A&M, LSU levels but if Miami is top 25 I don't know how anyone can say a **** thing.
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There’s only 31 stadiums in college football with more seats than Hardrock. Outside of SEC, BIG10 and the two Los Angeles schools, most college stadiums seat <60,000 people. So even if Miami is only selling 75% of their seats, they’ll still be in the top third in the nation for attendance. I think if the team can win consistently, we’re looking at an average attendance between 56-60k for a season.
 
CorniceCane said:
Have you been going to games for the last 40 years to make this claim? I have! I have also seen the area and culture change during that time. Most people down here are more concerned with being seen at an event versus going to the event that they want to go to. This culture is entirely different than it once was and changes the dynamic entirely.

Back in the day, the OB would be mostly full for run of the mill games. Tulsa, West Virginia, San Diego State, Washington/Washington State, Arizona…you name the team. We would of course sell out the big ones (FSU, PSU, ND).

But we haven’t been relevant since being members of a real conference. And we haven’t been relevant in this South Florida atmosphere that loves being a follower of a winner, so I don’t know how you can make that claim. I could see us being mostly full for UVA, UNC, VT, NC State, Wake (in good years) and of course selling out for FSU and Clemson…so long as we are a top 10 team. The games are fun when we are spanking the teams that we should and even better when we are on top. But more so nowadays, we would be the popular draw, and that is what this culture loves most.

Bethune, FAMU, Central Connecticut St, Middle TN State, these games in the middle of the day/heat are only for the truly devoted fans, and will always be just that as no one else cares but the loyalist. But look at other stadiums for the likes of Morehead State or Austin Peay University. Even Alabama won’t fill a stadium for those games and there is nothing to do there as an alternative.
Click to expand...

You realize that we have this thing called video and whatnot that completely disproves your statement, right? We can easily pull up the film from the "Decade of Dominance" and see that the OB was half full at best for the garbage on the schedule. Throughout the history of the program, one could easily predict the attendance figures for the season by answering the following question: Was there a huge opponent(FSU, UF) coming into town that year? If the answer was yes, then the average looked great. If not, it's iffy at best. People have shown, for DECADES that a lot of things will have to go right, in order for them to show up to a Hurricanes game. It doesn't help that our already small alumni base is mostly out of state, and there aren't nearly enough local alumni to make up for that.

Orange Bowl Capacity: 72k(I rounded down)

19835222,83944,555
19845247,852*41,309
19855225,35345,070
19866291,42748,571
19877377,44453,920
19887371,74253,106
19896309,80551,634
19906372,57762,096
19916347,78557,964
19926334,05255,675
19936287,31947,887
19946361,98660,331
19956229,22338,204
19966249,67041,612
19976173,49528,916
19986259,20943,202
19996235,57839,263
20006350,57858,430
20016282,97246,162
20026417,23369,539
20037406,94558,135
20046354,80359,134
20056271,86245,310
20067293,35941,908
20077305,12443,589

Look at those numbers. Even when times were great, we never packed the facility. We got 60k+ average three times in that span, and those were years where you had FSU coming in for HUGE games. I don't know how our fans can pretend that the attendance is some kind of wonderful, when ever during some of the best years in program history, Miami needed a big time opponent to come in to get people to care.
 
Canedude08 said:
You realize that we have this thing called video and whatnot that completely disproves your statement, right? We can easily pull up the film from the "Decade of Dominance" and see that the OB was half full at best for the garbage on the schedule. Throughout the history of the program, one could easily predict the attendance figures for the season by answering the following question: Was there a huge opponent(FSU, UF) coming into town that year? If the answer was yes, then the average looked great. If not, it's iffy at best. People have shown, for DECADES that a lot of things will have to go right, in order for them to show up to a Hurricanes game. It doesn't help that our already small alumni base is mostly out of state, and there aren't nearly enough local alumni to make up for that.

Orange Bowl Capacity: 72k(I rounded down)

19835222,83944,555
19845247,852*41,309
19855225,35345,070
19866291,42748,571
19877377,44453,920
19887371,74253,106
19896309,80551,634
19906372,57762,096
19916347,78557,964
19926334,05255,675
19936287,31947,887
19946361,98660,331
19956229,22338,204
19966249,67041,612
19976173,49528,916
19986259,20943,202
19996235,57839,263
20006350,57858,430
20016282,97246,162
20026417,23369,539
20037406,94558,135
20046354,80359,134
20056271,86245,310
20067293,35941,908
20077305,12443,589

Look at those numbers. Even when times were great, we never packed the facility. We got 60k+ average three times in that span, and those were years where you had FSU coming in for HUGE games. There were more years where Miami was acting
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People tend to think those years were full of sellouts because most fans only went to the big games that were sold out.

You can also tell which seasons we had FSU at home just by looking at the attendance numbers.
 
Canedude08 said:
You realize that we have this thing called video and whatnot that completely disproves your statement, right? We can easily pull up the film from the "Decade of Dominance" and see that the OB was half full at best for the garbage on the schedule. Throughout the history of the program, one could easily predict the attendance figures for the season by answering the following question: Was there a huge opponent(FSU, UF) coming into town that year? If the answer was yes, then the average looked great. If not, it's iffy at best. People have shown, for DECADES that a lot of things will have to go right, in order for them to show up to a Hurricanes game. It doesn't help that our already small alumni base is mostly out of state, and there aren't nearly enough local alumni to make up for that.

Orange Bowl Capacity: 72k(I rounded down)

19835222,83944,555
19845247,852*41,309
19855225,35345,070
19866291,42748,571
19877377,44453,920
19887371,74253,106
19896309,80551,634
19906372,57762,096
19916347,78557,964
19926334,05255,675
19936287,31947,887
19946361,98660,331
19956229,22338,204
19966249,67041,612
19976173,49528,916
19986259,20943,202
19996235,57839,263
20006350,57858,430
20016282,97246,162
20026417,23369,539
20037406,94558,135
20046354,80359,134
20056271,86245,310
20067293,35941,908
20077305,12443,589

Look at those numbers. Even when times were great, we never packed the facility. We got 60k+ average three times in that span, and those were years where you had FSU coming in for HUGE games. I don't know how our fans can pretend that the attendance is some kind of wonderful, when ever during some of the best years in program history, Miami needed a big time opponent to come in to get people to care.
Click to expand...
You’re a lot of fun to deal with. Please look at your average attendance per game and recognize the spokes in the data (1987-1990 & 2002 to be specific). What was happening during those years my man? Oh yeah, championships! And the down years of the 90’s is reflective of the Pell Grant violations that left us short on scholarships and this caused our product on the field to suffer. Thanks for taking the time to put the chart together though to prove the point.

Do you live in South Florida? Just curious if you see the same people that I do when I go out in this “all about me culture”. Do you go to Heat games? How many people are actually watching the game. Who shows up for tip-off (need some of that invention called video for that too)?

We don’t yet have a dominant product and we are arguing about if the stadium will be relatively full against UNC, UVA, VT, NCSt, etc. if we do. Yes, no one cares about BCU. But neither do they care where they sell out most weekends too. Just wait a couple of years to see what kind of showing we have for most “normal games”. You will be surprised as to how full the stadium is and what the crowd looks like then.
 
CorniceCane said:
You’re a lot of fun to deal with. Please look at your average attendance per game and recognize the spokes in the data (1987-1990 & 2002 to be specific). What was happening during those years my man? Oh yeah, championships! And the down years of the 90’s is reflective of the Pell Grant violations that left us short on scholarships and this caused our product on the field to suffer. Thanks for taking the time to put the chart together though to prove the point.

Do you live in South Florida? Just curious if you see the same people that I do when I go out in this “all about me culture”. Do you go to Heat games? How many people are actually watching the game. Who shows up for tip-off (need some of that invention called video for that too)?

We don’t yet have a dominant product and we are arguing about if the stadium will be relatively full against UNC, UVA, VT, NCSt, etc. if we do. Yes, no one cares about BCU. But neither do they care where they sell out most weekends too. Just wait a couple of years to see what kind of showing we have for most “normal games”. You will be surprised as to how full the stadium is and what the crowd looks like then.
Click to expand...
I lived in South Florida for over a decade as I worked on my BS/BA, MBA and JD, so I'm quite familiar with how people operate in the area. The numbers don't lie, Miami had a dominant program for over a decade, and in a city of well over a million, people couldn't be bothered to care, unless a big opponent showed up. It was the perfect storm of things going right and people STILL found ways to not show up . Miami is an EVENT town and it is borderline impossible to have a schedule where you have every home game be an event. Even when you have a GREAT schedule, you may have two big time home games, 3 okay ones and some trash.

You also forget one important change from back then: EVERY SINGLE MIAMI GAME CAN BE VIEWED FROM HOME. Even if it isn't on national TV, you can easily stream games. Back during the Decade of Dominance, if you wanted to see the midmajor games, you had to show up to the stadium, because one couldn't count on every Miami game being on TV. Even with that, the attendance was mediocre. I get it, the fog of history obscures what actually happened, but we need to be realistic about what it's going to be like. There isn't an iota of evidence to indicate that if Mario gets this thing rolling again, people are going to show up. We have historical precedent, we have the facts and figures.
 
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DTP said:
People tend to think those years were full of sellouts because most fans only went to the big games that were sold out.

You can also tell which seasons we had FSU at home just by looking at the attendance numbers.
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yup. our home schedule when we have Clemson and ND or FSU at home will be insane and also very unicornesque
 
Canedude08 said:
I lived in South Florida for over a decade as I worked on my BS/BA, MBA and JD, so I'm quite familiar with how people operate in the area. The numbers don't lie, Miami had a dominant program for over a decade, and in a city of well over a million, people couldn't be bothered to care, unless a big opponent showed up. It was the perfect storm of things going right and people STILL found ways to not show up . Miami is an EVENT town and it is borderline impossible to have a schedule where you have every home game be an event. Even when you have a GREAT schedule, you may have two big time home games, 3 okay ones and some trash.

You also forget one important change from back then: EVERY SINGLE MIAMI GAME CAN BE VIEWED FROM HOME. Even if it isn't on national TV, you can easily stream games. Back during the Decade of Dominance, if you wanted to see the midmajor games, you had to show up to the stadium, because one couldn't count on every Miami game being on TV. Even with that, the attendance was mediocre. I get it, the fog of history obscures what actually happened, but we need to be realistic about what it's going to be like. There isn't an iota of evidence to indicate that if Mario gets this thing rolling again, people are going to show up. We have historical precedent, we have the facts and figures.
Click to expand...
We will see how this shakes out in a couple of years. I disagree with your assessment of how things will be. And Miami-Dade now has nearly 3MM people living in it, let alone Broward and Palm Beach being very accessible to Hard Rock. I can appreciate that now we can watch our Canes while in the luxury of our own homes, but that runs counter to the culture of being “seen” at the event by posting all kinds of crap online.

I took a client and his wife to a very exclusive and expensive event this year that doesn’t allow cell phones. Her biggest concern was getting in line for the photo that the event took of you to retrieve later. This is the attitude that surrounds us here. That is why FTX is packed ALL of the time (by halftime mind you). Half the people there don’t know how to spell basketball or couldn’t tell you who Alonzo Mourning is. When the experience is something popular and somewhat exclusive (i.e. barrier to entry if non-season tickets are limited), they will show and be happy to pay for it just to say/show that they were at the experience.

While I have seen the attendance that you are describing and have had to pick and choose games due to schedules of my kids, I lived and attended most games during the dominance of the 80s/early 90s. There was a passion for this team that was indescribable and since then, we have gone from being a less than sleepy little southern town to a hot spot filled with disposable income to be spent on events like these. The only barrier to that stadium being filled (once we are perennial top 10) is the pain in the *** parking situation created by the addition of the tennis center and race track around the stadium.
 
There’s still specific butcher shops out there but they’re mostly catering to the higher end market. If you’re looking for premium cuts, they have stuff the grocery stores don’t carry. Although I have found that Wild Fork in Fort Lauderdale is pretty reasonable on prices. They’re on Federal just north of Sunrise
 
Canedude08 said:
You realize that we have this thing called video and whatnot that completely disproves your statement, right? We can easily pull up the film from the "Decade of Dominance" and see that the OB was half full at best for the garbage on the schedule. Throughout the history of the program, one could easily predict the attendance figures for the season by answering the following question: Was there a huge opponent(FSU, UF) coming into town that year? If the answer was yes, then the average looked great. If not, it's iffy at best. People have shown, for DECADES that a lot of things will have to go right, in order for them to show up to a Hurricanes game. It doesn't help that our already small alumni base is mostly out of state, and there aren't nearly enough local alumni to make up for that.

Orange Bowl Capacity: 72k(I rounded down)

19835222,83944,555
19845247,852*41,309
19855225,35345,070
19866291,42748,571
19877377,44453,920
19887371,74253,106
19896309,80551,634
19906372,57762,096
19916347,78557,964
19926334,05255,675
19936287,31947,887
19946361,98660,331
19956229,22338,204
19966249,67041,612
19976173,49528,916
19986259,20943,202
19996235,57839,263
20006350,57858,430
20016282,97246,162
20026417,23369,539
20037406,94558,135
20046354,80359,134
20056271,86245,310
20067293,35941,908
20077305,12443,589

Look at those numbers. Even when times were great, we never packed the facility. We got 60k+ average three times in that span, and those were years where you had FSU coming in for HUGE games. I don't know how our fans can pretend that the attendance is some kind of wonderful, when ever during some of the best years in program history, Miami needed a big time opponent to come in to get people to care.
Click to expand...

Are those "tickets sold" or "asses in the seat" numbers? I was season ticket holder during all those years. There were games that sold out. As someone else has pointed out, they erected bleachers in the end zone for some games. You also have to take into consideration we were playing in the Big East in some of those years. We were also going under or coming out of probation part of the time. Add in, the number of home games fluctuated during those years throws averages out of kilter. Miami is home to a number of major sports teams. Of course, people are going to spend their money on the more interesting games and not go to meaningless match ups. TV coverage has also impacted attendance.
 
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Canedude08 said:
You realize that we have this thing called video and whatnot that completely disproves your statement, right? We can easily pull up the film from the "Decade of Dominance" and see that the OB was half full at best for the garbage on the schedule. Throughout the history of the program, one could easily predict the attendance figures for the season by answering the following question: Was there a huge opponent(FSU, UF) coming into town that year? If the answer was yes, then the average looked great. If not, it's iffy at best. People have shown, for DECADES that a lot of things will have to go right, in order for them to show up to a Hurricanes game. It doesn't help that our already small alumni base is mostly out of state, and there aren't nearly enough local alumni to make up for that.

Orange Bowl Capacity: 72k(I rounded down)

19835222,83944,555
19845247,852*41,309
19855225,35345,070
19866291,42748,571
19877377,44453,920
19887371,74253,106
19896309,80551,634
19906372,57762,096
19916347,78557,964
19926334,05255,675
19936287,31947,887
19946361,98660,331
19956229,22338,204
19966249,67041,612
19976173,49528,916
19986259,20943,202
19996235,57839,263
20006350,57858,430
20016282,97246,162
20026417,23369,539
20037406,94558,135
20046354,80359,134
20056271,86245,310
20067293,35941,908
20077305,12443,589

Look at those numbers. Even when times were great, we never packed the facility. We got 60k+ average three times in that span, and those were years where you had FSU coming in for HUGE games. I don't know how our fans can pretend that the attendance is some kind of wonderful, when ever during some of the best years in program history, Miami needed a big time opponent to come in to get people to care.
Click to expand...
I can backup your statement. I've been going to games since the 70's and yes we we're half full for ordinary games even in our best years. Not sure what this guys talking about.
 
CorniceCane said:
We will see how this shakes out in a couple of years. I disagree with your assessment of how things will be. And Miami-Dade now has nearly 3MM people living in it, let alone Broward and Palm Beach being very accessible to Hard Rock. I can appreciate that now we can watch our Canes while in the luxury of our own homes, but that runs counter to the culture of being “seen” at the event by posting all kinds of crap online.

I took a client and his wife to a very exclusive and expensive event this year that doesn’t allow cell phones. Her biggest concern was getting in line for the photo that the event took of you to retrieve later. This is the attitude that surrounds us here. That is why FTX is packed ALL of the time (by halftime mind you). Half the people there don’t know how to spell basketball or couldn’t tell you who Alonzo Mourning is. When the experience is something popular and somewhat exclusive (i.e. barrier to entry if non-season tickets are limited), they will show and be happy to pay for it just to say/show that they were at the experience.

While I have seen the attendance that you are describing and have had to pick and choose games due to schedules of my kids, I lived and attended most games during the dominance of the 80s/early 90s. There was a passion for this team that was indescribable and since then, we have gone from being a less than sleepy little southern town to a hot spot filled with disposable income to be spent on events like these. The only barrier to that stadium being filled (once we are perennial top 10) is the pain in the *** parking situation created by the addition of the tennis center and race track around the stadium.
Click to expand...
In 1989 the year we won our 3rd NC we had several games with low attendance. Cincinnati, San Jose ST. and this doozy where we got a whopping 35,159 to show up.

November 4East CarolinaNo. 7
  • Miami Orange Bowl
  • Miami, FL
W 40–1035,159

Or in 1991 season where we played Oklahoma St. at home and could only muster up 42,751
 
hoops156 said:
eh. its miami bro. it isnt a sports town. the fanbase is small and the ones that attend is even smaller. much more comfortable for people to watch on their couches and still support.

its also Bethune which matters. no one cares that Mario is the coach when the attendance is heavily based on who we play not on our team (reason why the big game opponents get larger crowds no matter how good or bad we are).

we have 35k STHers this year. say 25K maybe 27K show up bc I can tell you that there are a decent amount of STHers who dont live in FL but have tickets bc they graduated from UM and want to have tix for the few games they show up to (its also cheaper doing this than buying a 100 level ticket on stubhub for FSU).

the rest will come from single game sales, employees, students. its Labor Day weekend so its a good weekend where some students will go home or go to the beach and hang out, tailgate and hit up the bars bc it is Bethune lol, etc.. id say 6 at best show up in the stands. its not employee day where its like a 3-1 ticket thing. they said they sold 50k tickets for the Bethune game. im gonna say 40-45 actually attend which is on par for that opponent any season good or bad
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Very true. I have seasons obviously and am in Virginia right now. I gave my tickets for tomorrow's gave to active duty enlisted service members.
 
canecrazy23 said:
In 1989 the year we won our 3rd NC we had several games with low attendance. Cincinnati, San Jose ST. and this doozy where we got a whopping 35,159 to show up.

November 4East CarolinaNo. 7
  • Miami Orange Bowl
  • Miami, FL
W 40–1035,159

Or in 1991 season where we played Oklahoma St. at home and could only muster up 42,751
Click to expand...
OklahomaSt was 0-10 that year. And ECU was 5-5 (and I was there). I find it funny how these are the games that are being pointed out when the entire point of my original post was about the noise level in the stadium (having just had my eardrums blown out the night before at the Chili Peppers show).

All of my remarks thereafter have been about us being in a different era than we were in the 80s and 90s (culturally speaking) and that if we do become a winner (like most of us are hoping) that I believe the seats will be full for the most part for reasonable games as we did a pretty good job of it when it was just UM fans going to the games in the 80s and 90s. We also did have reasonable butts in the seats compared to the atrocity that we have seen through the Shannon/Golden/Richt/Diaz years at Hard Rock. I was at that Clemson game when Golden got fired (you could hear a pin drop in that joint). Those days are thankfully behind us.

Would you not agree that the area has changed since ‘89? What do you see when you go to out to an event? Art Basel, a concert, Heat Game, etc.? Do the fans know the words to the songs or are they busy playing with their phones (been to 3 shows in the last month where it has been the latter)? Are they in their seats at the beginning of the games for a sell out at FTX Arena? How many people at Miami F1 could tell you anything about cars or were they there because it was important to be seen there?

This is the biggest factor in all of this. I believe in today’s South Florida culture, if you win, they will come since this is all about a shallow popularity contest (the LeBron James Heat team is my hypothesis). Nobody cared about D Wade until LeBron and Bosh came to town. And then they didn’t care when he picked up to leave to go to Chi Town since LeBron had already bolted. I am a dedicated fan, my buddies are dedicated fans, but I know plenty that show up to things just to say or show that they are a part of the “in crowd” and I believe that is where we can get to if we prove to be a winner. With any hope, our Hurricanes can be the next “it” thing to do as we work our way back to national relevance.
 
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