Based on a ridiculous article by Tony Barnhart on CBSSports.com, the SEC is looking for ways to improve their fans' experience at games due to a decrease in attendance the past few years from a high set in 2007. Barnhart talks about the mighty conference hiring experts to sort out the problem when the answer is buried, by not analyzed, in the column. Stop scheduling so many mediocre opponents! True it mysteriously does not hurt you in the polls and some lunatic fans seem to not care about the opponent as long as their favorite is running up the score, but when you schedule lesser opponents solely to get an easy win and still charge $100 to the game, some fans are not going to show up. Surprise, surprise. Barnhart quotes Florida Athletic Director Jeremy Foley as saying, "It's a real issue (of the drop in attendance)." He then states, "A confluence of things is coming together and the world has changed. We have to change with it." Huh? Later Barnhart allows Foley to point a finger at Stubhub and the like. And then in a buried section on cupcake scheduling, which is not given full consideration, the discussion again attacks the secondary ticket market.
Nowhere in the piece does Barnhart explain that yes ticket sales were down 2% at Florida despite an 11-win season because...the Gators hosted such powers as Bowling Green, Louisiana and Jacksonville State. Their SEC home opponents did include LSU and South Carolina but also Kentucky and newbie Missouri who is not exactly a rival. Why do you need a panel to explain a drop in attendance with that slate of games? And guess what Florida, the fact that your home schedule for this year includes Toledo, Tennessee, Arkansas, Vandy and Georgia Southern plus the only game fans are now excited about--Florida State on November 30--means that you probably need another blue ribbon panel to give you suggestions for less than stellar ticket sales in 2013.
The other problem with the SEC is that the more you keep telling us that the conference is the best and there really is not a second best, the more you establish SEC rivalry games as important and everything else as meaningless. It is a self-fulfilling set of B.S.
So feel free to continue to cry that you "only" sell 98% of your high priced tickets. All of your friendly media experts will back you up 100%.
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