For a second straight year, Michigan set an all-time record for highest average attendance for a college football team, with 112,252 fans cramming into Michigan Stadium per game.
Michigan sets all-time college football attendance record
Michigan had the most fans ever per game at their stadium this year, breaking their own record from last year. That said, the SEC had the most overall fans, because ROLL DAMN ATTENDANCE CHAMPIONSHIP.
Leon Halip
Last year, Michigan averaged 112,179 in 2011, then a record, but this year, upped that -- although they played only six home games in 2012, meaning the 2011 season still holds the all-time total attendance record. It’s no surprise they had the most fans in college football this year -- it was their 15th straight attendance title.
The question is: how big is the Big House? Since an expansion in 2010, the official capacity is 109,901, but they’re averaging 3,000 more fans per game than that. And even so, they’re well off the highest number of people that can fit in the stadium: the college football single-game attendance record was set at the first-ever game under the lights at Michigan, the insane back-and-forth win over Notre Dame in 2011, where three touchdowns were scored in the last 1:12 of game time. That game had a whopping 114,804 in attendance. 5,000 over capacity is some serious sardine can/1950s phone booth stuff. I guess the Big House shows B1G fans aren’t as big as we thought they were.
There’s some other tidbits from the NCAA release:
- The SEC had the highest overall attendance, setting an all-time record for a conference with 7,478,304 -- ANOTHER CHAMPIONSHIP FOR THE S-E-C, ROLL ATTENDANCE. It didn't hurt that they added two extra teams, but they also had the highest average attendance of any conference at 75,538 per game.
- Bama also won the overall attendance title when you include road and neutral-site games, with 1,299,659 fans in 14 games.
- Cal had the biggest increase in average attendance thanks to a move back into California Memorial Stadium from the temporary one-season digs at the San Francisco Giants' home at AT&T Park, which shows that a newly renovated stadium beats winning games.
- Appalachian State, Montana, James Madison, and Old Dominion each had more than 20,000 fans per game. Meanwhile, the Sun Belt conference set an all-time average attendance record with ... 19,766. F-C-S! F-C-S!
All that and more kooky attendance facts here . They had this fun table, too!
| TEAMS | GAMES | ATTENDANCE | AVG. | CHANGE | AVG. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FBS Home Attendance | 120 | 763 | 34,312,026 | 44,970 | -220,598 | -528 |
| FBS Neutral-Site Attendance | 21 | 1,170,818 | 55,753 | 56,871 | -6,133 | |
| FBS Bowl Game Attendance | 35 | 1,722,833 | 49,224 | -42,391 | -1,211 | |
| FBS TOTALS | 120 | 818 * | 37,170,235 | 45,440 | -241,560 | -633 |
| FCS Home Attendance | 122 | 645 | 5,531,181 | 8,575 | -318,732 | -466 |
| FCS Neutral-Site Attendance | 14 | 414,680 | 29,620 | -121,880 | -189 | |
| FCS Championship | 1 | 21,411 | 21,411 | 825 | 825 | |
| FCS TOTALS | 122 | 660 | 5,967,272 | 9,041 | -439,787 | -579 |
| DIVISION I TOTALS | 242 | 1,478 | 43,137,507 | 29,186 | -681,347 | -461 |
| DII Home Attendance | 157 | 830 | 2,852,888 | 3,437 | 31,682 | -120 |
| DII Neutral-Site Attendance | 23 | 145,882 | 6,343 | -61,332 | -5,169 | |
| DII Championship | 1 | 7,527 | 7,527 | 251 | 251 | |
| DIVISION II TOTALS | 157 * | 854 * | 3,006,297 | 3,520 | -29,399 | -218 |
| DIII Home Attendance | 240 | 1,206 | 2,349,123 | 1,948 | -60,762 | -54 |
| DIII Neutral-Site Attendance | 3 | 6,537 | 2,179 | -7,439 | 626 | |
| DIII Championship | 1 | 6,027 | 6,027 | 2,243 | 2,243 | |
| DIVISION III TOTALS | 240 | 1,210 | 2,361,687 | 1,952 | -65,958 | -48 |
| Home Attendance, Reclassifying Teams | 5 | 27 | 453,056 | 16,780 | 35,832 | 4,509 |
| NATIONAL TOTALS | 644 * | 3,569 * | 48,958,547 | 13,718 | -740,872 | -330 |
| * - Record | ||||||
| Note: San Diego State played host to a bowl game on its home field so the attendance (35,442) was included in SDSU's home attendance and in the bowl game total. Since it is counted in both categories, an adjustment was made in the FBS totals to reflect the accurate national total. | ||||||
| Championships: The total attendance for the FCS championship was 227,415 for an 11,969 average for 19 games; the DII championship was 98,231 for a 4,271 average for 23 games; and the DIII championship was 56,309 for a 1,816 average for 31 games. | ||||||
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