Rutgers has a football attendance problem. It is arguably the biggest threat to our future in the Big Ten and really needs to improve sooner rather than later. The best way to do this is to lower ticket prices.
StatenIsland is right. Rutgers football attendance is absolutely the biggest threat to our future in the Big Ten, and if something isn't done about it, we are likely to get kicked out of the conference.
When Rutgers and Maryland were invited to the Big Ten, it had nothing to do with the Big Ten adding the number 1 and number 9 media markets, or anything to do with all the money we've added to the conference coffers. It had to do with stadium attendance, and if we don't get our numbers up to the 100K range to match some of our conference-mates, we will find ourselves without a conference to call home.
Now that the Big Ten has added UCLA and USC, they control the number 1, 2, 3, and 4 markets, if they cared about such things. But they would give up a presence in the number 1 market, rather than face the embarrassment of empty seats in a football stadium.
Last season Rutgers ranked 4th from the bottom in Big Ten football attendance, ahead of only Northwestern, Illinois, and Maryland, and just 2000 fans behind Indiana and Minnesota. All 6 of these teams are soon to be kicked out. Minnesota is already in discussions with the Big 12, just in case.
If Rutgers can't drastically increase attendance, we should be proactive in finding another conference ASAP. I suggest that we reach out to the ACC. If we were in the ACC, our attendance last season would have seemed respectable, ahead of Duke, Wake, Syracuse, Fredo, Ga Tech, Virginia, Miami, and Louisville.
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Some people might point out that Rutgers had the largest attendance increase from 2019 (Ash's last season) to 2021 (Schiano 2.0's 2nd season). They might say that shows that fielding a more competitive team is what drives attendance increases. But that is cherry-picking data. Everyone knows that winning has nothing to do with attendance.
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The trick to a convincing argument on the internet is to ignore data that doesn't support your theory. Or explain it away in a footnote.