Chris Ford

About Chris Ford

Chris Ford is the head nacho of AMSTS and generally a nice guy. Besides sports and sports analytics, he enjoys world travel, and running.
With the neutral sites behind us, attendance was up almost 40% as teams returned to campus. Traditionally these few weeks signify a bit of a dead cat bounce in NCAA Basketball Attendance before the plummet after final exams in mid-December.  That said, with our lowest attended game still over 300 fans, this week was nothing short of remarkable.   Without further ado, let’s take a look: Number of games drawing fewer than 1,000 fans: 49 (Season total: 212) Here are the 3 lowest attended games of last week Presbyterian vs St. Francis (NY) – 409 showed up to Ross E. Templeton PE […]

NCAA Basketball 2018-19 Attendance, Week 4: Back on Campus

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FBS Conference Championships happened this week, with another smattering of teams rescheduling games in an attempt to make a bowl.  While that happened, top draw FCS playoff matchups happened with a berth in the quarterfinals on the line. Lots of reasons to see good football, but still plenty of empty seats.  Let’s take a look, shall we?   Worst overall Division I attendance: 3,042 – South Dakota State vs Duquesne. It was a snowy day in Brookings which presumably kept most of the Jackrabbit fans home, and apparently the entire Duquesne team decided to stay on the bus as the […]

NCAA Football 2018 Attendance, Week 13: Championship Week and FCS ...

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Thanksgiving week was upon us, and it was the second week of neutral site tournaments.  After a mild first week, the Thanksgiving week neutral site games blew everything out of the water, including the second lowest attended NCAA Basketball game we’ve ever had since we started tracking attendance in 2014, and the lowest attended game featuring two Division I teams.  Without further ado, let’s take a look: Number of games drawing fewer than 1,000 fans: 72 (Season total: 163) Here are the 3 lowest attended games of last week Jacksonville State vs North Florida – Only 121 showed up to see […]

NCAA Basketball 2018-19 Attendance, Week 3: Fifty Fans For D1 ...

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Week thirteen kicks off the FCS playoffs – even if the crowds aren’t too interested yet – and perhaps is better known as being Rivalry Week.  With that, overall attendance was at 34,000 flat, which is a huge improvement over previous weeks, buoyed by most FCS teams not playing a game and coupled with the fact that most rivalry games tend to draw big crowds even if the teams are no good.  Let’s take a look, shall we?   Worst overall Division I attendance: 2,157 – Wofford vs Elon.  It’s the first round of the FCS playoffs, and not much […]

NCAA Football 2018 Attendance, Week 13: Rivalry Week and FCS ...

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With the way NCAA rules are written, teams are allowed to play an additional three extra games in the case of a so-called “Exempt tournament”.  As a result of this, the Maui Invitational and Great Alaska Shootout have since exploded into dozens of tournaments with almost every Division I team participating.  Ultimately, the bigger name tournaments do well and have plenty of good matchups, but some of the other ones?  Woof.  We’re talking fewer than 100 in attendance for some of these games.   So what if, for one year, we made the tournaments more interesting?  Why not throw every […]

Let’s Replace College Basketball Early Season Tournaments With Nickname Battles ...

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The second week of college basketball brings with it plenty of neutral site tournaments, many of the lower ones played on random campuses sprinkled throughout the nation.  That’s one of the reasons we saw so many games below 500 in attendance, so let’s get into it right now: Number of games drawing fewer than 1,000 fans: 67 (Season total: 91) Here are the 3 lowest attended games of last week UC-Davis vs Texas A&M-Corpus Christi – Only 150 were in attendance in Arlington, Texas for the neutral site game between the Aggies and the Islanders.  The game went to overtime before […]

NCAA Basketball 2018-19 Attendance, Week 2:

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Week twelve brings us in closer to rivalry week where attendance should peak, but even despite interesting scheduling by the SEC, attendance was up to 26,528, a gain of over 2,000 fans over last week.  Even with that, we still had an FCS game below a thousand fans and an FBS Division winner playing in front of fewer than 5,000 fans at home, so let’s take a look at the big picture, shall we?   Worst overall Division I attendance: 856 – Delaware State vs VU of Lynchburg.  The last game of the season for the Hornets as they played […]

NCAA Football 2018 Attendance, Week 12: MAC West Champions, Even ...

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College basketball is back, and with it we bring you our weekly update on attendance.  As in most years, the first week of the season does fairly well, with all 353 Division I teams holding on to their dreams of winning (or maybe just making) the NCAA Tournament.  Let’s begin our journey through NCAA Basketball’s 2018-19 season, shall we? Number of games drawing fewer than 1,000 fans: 24 (Season total: 24) Here are the 3 lowest attended games of last week St. Francis (NY) vs Medgar Evans – The Terriers of Brooklyn took on the Medgar Evans Cougars of Division III, […]

NCAA Basketball 2018-19 Attendance, Week 1: The Journey Begins!

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Week eleven was marked by cold weather nationwide, but with it attendance found a way to rise 355 fans to an average of 24,350 last week.  Even still, it was a story of “haves” and “have nots” with an FCS game below a thousand fans, a FBS game with fewer than 6,000.  And best of all? Both involved teams fighting for a chance to win their conference.  Let’s take a look, shall we?   Worst overall Division I attendance: 912 – St. Francis (PA) vs Central Connecticut State. Fewer than 1,000 showed up to see a conference game with major implications […]

NCAA Football 2018 Attendance, Week 11: Big Ten, Little Crowd

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Week ten gave us a great slate of football games, so it’s no surprise that overall attendance was up to 23,995, a gain of 855 fans per game last week. Despite this, we had a new low for the season with only 468 in attendance as a Division III squad hosted an FCS team. Let’s take a look at the full week, shall we?   Worst overall Division I attendance: 468 – SUNY-Maritime vs Hampton.  Division III SUNY-Maritime hosted the FCS Pirates with only 468 in attendance to an eventual 51-10 Hampton victory.  As one would expect, D3 schools don’t […]

NCAA Football 2018 Attendance, Week 10: Sub-500 see FCS Football ...

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Weeks seven and eight have passed, and it’s time for another attendance update.  With cooler weather across the nation, plenty of fans were willing to go to football games, except at Miami of Ohio, who recorded the lowest attended FBS game of the year with merely 5,003 in attendance. For the rest of D1 Football, average attendance was 23,140 in week eight, down 562 over week seven.  Week seven came in at 23,702, which was down almost 2,000 from week six. Let’s take a look at the whole shebang, shall we? Worst overall Division I attendance: 852 – Central Connecticut State […]

NCAA Football 2018 Attendance, Week 9: KU Wins But Nobody ...

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Duke hosts Virginia in front of a small crowd
Weeks seven and eight have passed, and it’s time for another attendance update.  With cooler weather across the nation, plenty of fans were willing to go to football games, except at Miami of Ohio, who recorded the lowest attended FBS game of the year with merely 5,003 in attendance. For the rest of D1 Football, average attendance was 23,140 in week eight, down 562 over week seven.  Week seven came in at 23,702, which was down almost 2,000 from week six. Let’s take a look at the whole shebang, shall we? Worst overall Division I attendance, week 7: 1,154 – Prairie […]

NCAA Football 2018 Attendance, Weeks 7 & 8: The Lowest ...

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