Spring Game Attendance: It Is What It Is

Every year the Syracuse Orange play their spring game in the Carrier Dome and every year the attendance hovers somewhere around the 4K mark and every year we spend an inordinate amount of time analyzing that number and trying to figure out what it means.

Does it mean we're terrible fans? Does it mean we don't care? Does it mean that the number would be higher if we won more games during the previous season?

Honestly, I'm analyzed-out about it. I think the answer is...it is what it is.

Attendance for the 2012 edition came in at 3,716. That's down from 4,206 last year, which was roughly 1,000 people smaller from Marrone's first season at the helm. What's more likely, that the 5K Marrone in his first season was closer to the norm or that it was just a bump from new coach excitement following the GRE?

I think ultimately the problem is that we compare Syracuse to the Alabamas and Ohio States of the world where they 40,000 for a spring game would be considered low. Meanwhile, UConn got 5,500 and Boston College reportedly had 200. TWO HUNDRED!

It's all relative. (But seriously, BC...two hundred people???)

Call it a Northeastern thing. Whatever it is, short of knowing our team is going to compete for the national title, spring games just ain't our thing.

And no, I don't think the closed practices has anything to do with it. If anything, that should entice people to come out more because they want to see these players that have been carefully guarded for so long.

Oh well, let's all move on, shall we?