Dwindling fan support means fewer cheers for Old Nassau at sports events

Attending the Homecoming football festivities is typically a college rite of passage. At some larger state universities, attendance reaches as high as 100,000 fans at weekly games, tens of thousands of those being students.

Princeton students used to have such enthusiasm. Back in the 1940s, they organized dances before games, reserved hotel rooms as far away as Trenton for their dates and hired buses to travel between the hotels, the game and the dance.

Times have changed. Student support of football games simply is not what it used to be.

Whereas the attendance in the 1930s and 1940s averaged around 30,000 spectators per football game, attendance last year averaged 14,419 fans, placing the University 121st in the nation in Division I attendance, according to the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

In line with this trend, five years ago, Princeton took down old Palmer Stadium — built in 1914 to hold 70,000 people — and replaced it with the 30,000-capacity Princeton Stadium to prevent the bleachers from feeling too empty.

Football co-captain Chisom Opara '03 said he is surprised by the lack of support from students and wishes the stadium were filled at every match.

"It's disappointing as a player to walk out there and see half-filled bleachers and the student section empty," he said.

Princeton's decreasing fan support for football is consistent with Ivy League and national trends. In the last 18 years, Ivy attendance has dropped from an average of 15,000 fans per game to last year's average of 10,800. Over the same time span, Division I-AA attendance has dropped from an average of 10,885 per game to 8,283.

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In only one year, between 2000 and 2001, average attendance in the Ivy League went down by 611 fans per game.

Of those who do attend, alumni are the most devoted followers, and with them they bring remnants of old time football spirit.

For any given Princeton football game — and especially for Homecoming games — thousands of alumni will show up, tailgate beforehand either in the parking lot or at an eating club, don the school colors at the field and go to parties after the game.

"Our biggest fans are the alumni," Opara said. "They show up en masse and they're great to have at the games."

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Athletes in all sports appreciate a large, enthusiastic crowd.

"It gets the blood flowing" when fans are out cheering, men's basketball captain Kyle Wente '03 said.

While football used to be the main social event on a weekend afternoon, today's students say they are just too busy to make it out to the games.

"On Saturday afternoons students are usually doing their work or other activities," said Lizzy Louis '04. "We don't have time to go to the games."

To increase attendance at smaller athletic events, captains of this year's varsity teams have created pairings between different sports teams to encourage attendance at one another's games. The men's golf team, for example, is partnered with the women's field hockey team.

And over the past several years, teams have offered freebies — such as pizza, hot chocolate and T-shirts — to lure students to their games.

Kalle Crafton '03 of the men's open-weight crew team said fans at regattas consist mostly of ex-rowers and other crew members from the women's or lightweight men's boats.

Crew races, which are difficult to observe because they occur over such a great distance, attract anywhere from 50 to 150 fans during dual races, Crafton said.

Women's sports in general attract a smaller following, but unlike football, fan attendance has increased significantly since the start of women's athletics in the early '70s. Coaches say the increase is partly a result of the growing strength of the University's women's programs.

"Certainly attendance has increased over the last 10 to 15 years," said Chris Sailer, head coach of the national champion women's lacrosse team. "I feel like we get great attendance in general."

At the University of Maryland game, there were close to 2,000 people, Sailer added.

But regardless of the increasing prominence of women's athletics, men's sports tend to draw larger crowds. In contrast to the women's Maryland game, the men's home matchup against Syracuse last year packed the stadium with 5,000 fans.

Women's basketball co-captain Allison Cahill '03 observes the same trend in her own sport.

"A lot of people prefer men's basketball because it is a different game," she said, noting that men create more excitement on the court with their athleticism.

"It stinks, I think, especially if you have a really strong program," she added.

Cahill, as well as Opara and Wente, point to performance as a major factor in generating fans.

"The attendance for us has gotten better," women's soccer head coach Julie Shackford said. "We've gotten better, and that goes hand in hand."

Despite the downward trend in fan support, Opara said he has seen a gradual increase in football attendance during his college career because of the team's improving performance.

With a chance to remain in the running for the Ivy crown, the team attracted 18,000 fans — 4,000 more than average — at this Saturday's home game against the University of Pennsylvania.

"The trend is pretty consistent at the other schools," Cahill said. "The better the teams' programs are, the more fans they get."

At away matches against tough competitors, the squad must face a double opponent — the team on the field and the antagonistic fans in the bleachers.

Opara said the away game this fall against Lehigh University — then ranked third in the country — was the most rowdy environment he's ever played in. Though only 12,000 fans attended, there was a high turnout of students, who are usually louder than alumni with children.

"It's intimidating for a team when you're playing not just another team but also playing against 10,000 fans just as involved in the game as the players on the field," Opara said.

With alumni leading the numbers in fan attendance at football games and other sporting events, it seems they still retain the spirit of their college days, when they would parade behind the band on the way to the field.

But current students, who have contributed to the trend of declining fan support, will soon become alumni themselves. One can only wonder whether today's students will continue the strong alumni tradition, or turn the tailgating tiger into an endangered species.