Despite the success of Gators athletics on the field and hardwood this year, UF has seen less attendance at its Fall sports.
Compared to last year, the average turnout at home football, basketball, volleyball and soccer games dipped, according to the University Athletic Association’s attendance figures.
Gators football attendance dropped by 1.6 percent from 2011 to 2012. At the seven home games this year, the average attendance at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium was 87,597, the lowest number since the Gators switched from six to seven home games in 2005.
“Those [numbers] are probably generous,” said industrial and systems engineering freshman Ben Rosenthal, 19. “You’d look up, and there would be whole sections with no one sitting there.”
Ben Hill Griffin Stadium has 88,548 seats. During the 2009 season with quarterback Tim Tebow, The Swamp averaged 90,635 attendees a game.
The Gators are ranked No. 3 in the Bowl Championship Series standings, and will play in a BCS bowl for the first time since Tebow’s senior season.
Attendance for the No. 7 Gators men’s basketball team’s home contests started low. Through the squad’s first five regular-season games, Stephen C. O’Connell Center attendance dropped by 6.7 percent, compared to last season’s 9,732 average after five contests.
Gators soccer took the most drastic attendance hit in 2012. The team reached the lowest average in its 18-year history with 1,051 fans a game. In 2011, UF soccer saw an average of 1,999 attendees a game.
The 15th-ranked Gators volleyball team also saw decreased attendance, but not as severely as other UF sports. This season, the team averaged 2,468 fans a game — 224 fewer than last year.
Ted Spiker, a UF associate journalism professor who teaches Sports Media and Society, believes television and social media changed the entire fan experience.
“People like sitting at home with their laptop on their lap, looking at Twitter feeds, watching the game, doing a million things at once,” Spiker said.
Spiker also thinks not having a clear superstar like Tebow hurt the football team’s attendance numbers this year.
“We’re in the superstar era,” Spiker said. “Obviously, people love team success, but I think you totally see a different mentality in the fans when you have a central figure that kind of transcends the team.”
Lucas Dolengowski, the research and development committee chairman for the Men’s Basketball Rowdies, believes attendance will get better as the season progresses.
“When football season ends in January, less people will be latched onto that,” the 20-year-old telecommunication sophomore said. “We’re spoiled here at UF. When we don’t have the big matchup, people don’t go.”
