CFB Attendance Declines for 7th Straight Season; Lowest Average Since 1981

College football attendance continued to drop last season, reaching its lowest point in 40 years.

According to Dennis Dodd of CBS Sports, the average FBS football game had 39,848 fans in attendance last season. Attendance hadn't been that low since 1981 when 34,621 fans attended games on average.

Last season also marked the continuation of a downward trend, as college football attendance has declined in each of the past seven years it has been measured.

The NCAA did not keep attendance records in 2020 since the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in reduced or no attendance for most games, but the drop from 2019 to 2021 was significant.

According to Dodd, attendance went down by 1,629 fans on a per-game basis and 3.93 percent overall from 2019 to 2021, marking the biggest year-to-year decline in college football history.

FBS attendance has dropped by at least 300 fans per game in each of the past seven seasons, and the drop has reached at least 1,000 fans per game three times during that span.

Seven of the 10 FBS conferences experienced a drop in attendance last season, with the Big Ten the only Power Five conference to see an increase.

The SEC led college football in attendance for the 23rd consecutive year with 72,195 fans per game, but the conference has seen its attendance decrease five years running.

The Big Ten, Sun Belt and Mid-American were the only conferences to see an increase in 2021. The Big Ten and Sun Belt were up slightly, while the MAC went up 12.4 percent for its highest average attendance since 2006.

Meanwhile, the Pac-12, American Athletic Conference, Mountain West Conference and Conference USA had their lowest attendance ever.

Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby gave his take on the overall decline: "We really are competing against the 70-inch TV and the beer that is cold in your refrigerator and no lines at the restroom. We have to continue to make sure we enhance the game day experience."

Bowlsby also expressed his belief that people aged 25 to 40 are less likely to spend money on attending sporting events than other activities.

To Bowlsby's point that fans prefer to watch games on television, ESPN reported viewership growth of college football games last season.

College football games on ABC, ESPN and ESPN2 were watched by an average of 1,976,000 viewers, which was up 19 percent from 2020 and 2 percent from 2019.

Also, ABC had its highest college football viewership on a per-game basis since 2017.