How many people showed up for the Howard game?
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The numbers weren’t good, regardless of the opponent
There was a state of emergency because of the impending nor’easter. It included Middlesex County, home of SHI Stadium.
Rutgers was 0-3, and had looked pretty bad in a couple games.
The opponent was an FCS school, one that was 1-2 coming in and just got shutout by Indiana, 55-0.
But….but….but….weren’t there 34,466 in attendance?
Well, there were 34,466 announced as the attendance. But, as we’ve discussed, that’s how many tickets were distributed, not necessarily the number in the stands. And the report is that this was still the lowest attendance in Schiano’s second stint in Piscataway. Not a good look.
That figure put Rutgers as the lowest attended Big Ten game of Week 4; the next lowest figure was Maryland’s 40,125, and they manipulate attendance figures more than Rutgers does.
The Big Ten is now getting into conference play, and this past weekend there were eight conference games of the ten games played. Attendance averaged almost 71,000, thanks to four sellouts and five stadiums with seating capacities well over that number. Unfortunately for the home teams, seven lost, disappointing a lot of folks who paid good money for those tix. That included Michigan and Penn State. I’ll wait for you to stop laughing.
You’ve stopped? Okay, I’ll continue.
USC, Rutgers’ great hope to run the table and prove how far we’d come, bumped into an Oregon team that some people were questioning; that top 20 showdown reaffirmed the Ducks as contenders and made USC’s performance against Rutgers seem the norm for the Men of Troy. But for USC, the matchup with Oregon brought in 15,000 more people to the LA Coliseum than attended the previous season high there (60,019).
On the topic of Penn State and its attendance….oh, you hadn’t asked about that? Sorry, we believe in schadenfreude here so….
Penn State had an “announced” attendance of 108,814. Liar, liar, pants on fire!
The folks in Happy Valley are going through a $700 million reno of Beaver Stadium. Matt Campbell’s guys did not help in filling it this past weekend. Add your own smiley face here!
For Rutgers – and to a degree Greg Schiano – attendance the rest of the way will be an interesting facet of the game. Rutgers has never had an attend-the-game-regardless-of-other-circumstances fanbase. Win and they show up. Have a winning team and a bad weather day? We’ll think about that. Have a losing record and a so-so team? What else can I watch on TV today? So, it should be very telling who, and how many, shows up on Saturday with 4-0 Indiana, a blackout game, and homecoming on the schedule. As of today, there is a very low chance of rain on Saturday with nighttime temps in the 60s; in other words, really good football weather. It is a Big Ten conference game against the defending national champion, so….
Then there’s TV viewership….
I love charts and tables, but unfortunately something went wrong and I could not generate any for this.
The three most watched games in week four were all SEC contests: Texas-Tennessee (9.75 million), Ole Miss-Florida (8.29 M), and Texas A&M-LSU (5.71 M), all on ABC. The B1G found its games in the next four spots on a combination of NBC, CBS, and Fox: Oregon-USC (4.57 M), Iowa-Michigan (4.46 M), Northwstern-Indiana (3.86 M), and Illinois-Ohio State (3.69 M).
There were also three games on BTN: Nebraska-Michigan State (900,000), UCLA-Maryland (210,000), and Rutgers-Howard. I’ll give you that number in a second. But for the sake of argument, a few other games:
- Liberty vs. Coastal Carolina: Thursday, Sept. 24, 7:30 p.m. ESPN – 660,000
- Kansas State vs. Cincinnati: Sept. 26, 7 p.m. ESPN2 – 440,000
- Incarnate Word vs. Texas State: Sept. 26, 6 p.m. USA – 100,000
Yes, Liberty-CCU was a stand alone Thursday night game on ESPN drawing a decent set of eyes. KSU-Cinncy was on ESPN 2. Incarnate Word-TSU on USA Network?
Rutgers-Howard on BTN drew 70,000 viewers. Putting it just behind USC-Oregon. Their in-stadium attendance, that is. I know: Howard, 0-3 Rutgers, BTN. But 70,000? Woof!
This Saturday’s game is also on BTN. It will be interesting to see what happens with viewers on Saturday night. For Big Ten fans, USC-Washington is on NBC at 7:30. Will the defending national champs draw viewers against that, or Arkansas-Texas A&M on ESPN2, or Miami-Clemson on ABC?
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