College football attendance saw a decline of 1.3% in '18, continuing the trend of the past 10 yearsGETTY IMAGES
Football Bowl Association Exec Dir Wright Waters said that the lower attendance at college football games can be "attributed to a number of factions," with technological advancements with TV and internet being the main cause, according to Edwin Stanton of the TUSCALOOSA NEWS. Waters said, "That is something different that we’ve never had to deal with before. When we had the Greatest Generation watching games, television was 30x30x30. We now have 70-inch TVs, and football is a game that broadcasts very well. For people to be able to sit at home on the couch with a cold beer and clean restrooms -- that’s an issue we’ve never dealt with before as we made these transitions." He added, "This generation is tied to cellphones and we don’t know exactly how to get into it." Stanton noted college football attendance saw a "slight dip" in '18, "continuing a trend of the past 10 years." Attendance last year had a 1.3% decline from '17. Waters said that the slight dip in attendance is "not enough for immediate concern." College football "continues to be profitable and has a huge impact on local economies." But the "lower numbers do suggest finding ways of protecting that investment for the future" (TUSCALOOSA NEWS, 6/16).
