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Univ. Of Georgia Sees Dip In Attendance At Sanford Stadium Amid Underachieving Season

Overall actual attendance at Sanford Stadium -- students plus general public -- going into last Saturday's game against Georgia Southern was "down an average" of 8% per game "compared with the same point last season," according to Tim Tucker of the ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION. Student turnout for the first six home games this season "has ranged from 14,400-plus for the games against South Carolina and Alabama to 9,117 for the Kentucky game." UGA AD Greg McGarity said, “Our numbers really have not been a concern in the big picture. But I do think [the Kentucky] game did create some numbers that are non-traditional for us. I don’t think it’s time to panic. I just think it’s a situation where a lot of things converged.” Tucker noted although the announced attendance for the Kentucky game was Georgia’s standard 92,746 -- "defined as tickets sold plus passes issued -- the actual attendance counted by the hand-held ticket scanners at the gates was 53,646." More than 30,000 people with tickets "were no-shows" for the game -- a "reflection of the Bulldogs’ three losses in October and a poor weather forecast." It was the "smallest Sanford Stadium crowd since Georgia began using the electronic ticket scanners" in '13. Although no-shows "don’t affect UGA’s ticket revenue -- all tickets, used or not, have been sold this season -- they do cause a drop in concessions sales, which were $212,000 less" at the Southern Univ. game than at the South Carolina game. Anticipating that the student turnout for last Saturday's Georgia Southern game would "be hurt by the start of Thanksgiving break," UGA "put 2,000 tickets in the student sections up for sale to the general public." UGA Dir of Ticket Operations Tim Cearley said that those "were gone by Friday" (ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION, 11/21).

TROUBLE IN PARADISE: In Honolulu, Ferd Lewis noted nothing spoke to the Univ. of Hawaii's "current distressed straits like the sight of the smallest turnout" for a game in the school's 41 years of residence at Aloha Stadium, 11,625, in a 42-23 loss to San Jose State on Saturday. Few things about this "year of struggle have been as haunting or alarming as the vision of 38,375 empty seats in the 50,00-seat facility." This "just a night after the Hawaii High School Athletic Association championship doubleheader pulled in 19,699, the first time UH has been so badly outnumbered by a state championship or Prep Bowl turnout." Three of the five "smallest crowds in UH history have come this season and there is little doubting that a new low likely awaits the season finale this week against Louisiana-Monroe." It has been 53 games "since UH last had a sellout at home" (HONOLULU STAR-ADVERTISER, 11/22).

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