While I'm assuming these numbers are based on the announced attendance and not actual attendance, the NCAA Accumulated Attendance Report (PDF) is out for the 2011 season and it states that Syracuse drew a crowd that was 82% of the Carrier Dome's capacity this year.
According to the report, 283,528 folks purchased a ticket for Syracuse Orange home football games, which comes out to 40,504 per game and 82.22% of capacity.
That's actually slightly up from 2010's numbers, when Syracuse averaged almost exactly 40K per game. Syracuse's attendance growth slowed in 2011 but remained on the uptick as it has been since Doug Marrone took over.
Year | Attendance Avg. | Capacity % | National Rank |
2011 | 40,504 | 82.2% | 60th |
2010 | 40,064 | 81.3% | 60th |
2009 | 39,043 | 79.2% | 59th |
2008 | 33,474 | 67.6% | 69th |
2007 | 35,009 | 71.1% | Unk |
2006 | 37,263 | 75.6% | 62nd |
It's a far cry from the halycon days of 1999 when Syracuse ranked 36th nationally in attendance and regularly saw 45K+ pack the Dome. But it's getting better.
The report is ranked by per-game average and the Big East shook out with West Virginia on top (56.5K, 94%) followed by Louisville (48.5K, 88.3%), Pitt (46K, 70%), South Florida (44.5K, 67%), Rutgers (43.7K, 83%), Syracuse, UConn (36.6K, 92%) and Cincinnati (33.3K, 92%).
The Big East ranked sixth among conferences (last in BCS) with a 44K average attendance.
The worst-attended BCS school was Duke (24.4K average) and the worst capacity percentage among BCS school was, interestingly, Miami (64%).