College football attendance is slightly declining, according to new report from Wall Street Journal

Football season is heating up, but a national report claims college football attendance has cooled down a bit recently. 

The Wall Street Journal put out a report last week that says the average announced attendance in football’s top division dropped for the fourth year in a row last year, declining 7.6 percent in four years. 

Stadiums are competing with live streams on cellphones and television apps. 

According to the article, the number of fans in seats is a fraction of what schools announce. 

The journal requested attendance figures from Division 1 schools, and nearly 100 replied. The numbers show a big difference in announced attendance versus actual attendance. 

Of the journal’s study, CCU is reported to have the biggest difference. The university had an announced home attendance total of almost 90,000 people for its six-game home schedule.

The report says the school had an actual attendance of 17 percent of that number last season, meaning that a little over 15,000 people actually attended the games. That’s an average of about 2,500 people per game.

(Source: The Wall Street Journal)

Coastal was the biggest gap leader but did not have the lowest reported attendance. 

Hogue said equipment issues with older scanning machines and WiFi dead zones caused their actual attendance numbers to be much lower. He also said that the school has been NCAA compliant in reporting their announced attendance. 

“We understand how the piece was portrayed,” Hogue said. “But we also know that that was data that was not relevant, it wasn’t valid, and it wasn’t data that we had to use in any sort of compulsory report.”

CCU works now to boost ticket sales overall but also to make sure people are showing up to the stadium after they buy or receive that ticket. 

“We still think that’s a unique environment,” Hogue said. “It’s an environment where you have a chance to be with family and friends and tailgate and kind of soak in all the different ambiances of it that you can’t get from watching the game in the palm of your hand.”

Following its transition to FBS, the top level of college football, Coastal works to to fill new seats and also keep die-hard fans like Randy Gaskins around. 

“I would love to see more support from our local people, and we will always go and continue to support coastal,” Gaskins, a season ticket holder, said. 

The University of South Carolina had an announced attendance of 550,099. According to the Journal, the actual number of fans at the game was 77.8 percent of that number, which is 427,851. 

(Source: The Wall Street Journal)

Clemson had a slightly higher scanned percentage. 

To see how other schools fared, click here.