Attendance at Sunday games

Here are the attendance figures from Sunday's games, courtesy of Soccer America:

2,438 Texas A&M-Texas
1.977 Colorado-Portland (second largest Buffalos' crowd)
1,752 Stanford-California
1,207 North Carolina-UNC Greensboro
1,113 Florida-UCF
892 Georgia-Duke
861 Florida State-LSU
708 Virginia-William & Mary
708 Purdue-Indiana
687 West Virginia-James Madison
451 Notre Dame-Illinois
429 Tennessee-Clemson
427 UCLA-Oklahoma State
353 Connecticut-Wake Forest (in Newton, Mass.)
331 *Penn State-Hofstra
293 Missouri-USC

About 400 of the fans at Boulder were Pilots fans -- parents and families, fans from Portland, and fans from the Boulder-Denver area. The school did a great job of sending an email to everyone it could think of in the Denver-Boulder area urging them to come to the game wearing their Pilots' colors -- alums, former players and former player families, etc. Lindsay Smart was there, a central defender from the great 1998 team that beat Notre Dame 2-1 in South Bend in the quarters and then lost the epic 4-overtime game to NC in Greensboro in the semis, and the parents of Cheryl Loveless, who was the starting keeper on that team, also were there decked out in purple.

Interesting that Portland produced more than or roughly the same number of fans at a site 1700 miles away as the total number of fans at 6 of the other sites.

That Texas A&M number cracks me up. I mean... that team averaged 3148 fans during the season. So how in the world could a Saturday night play-off game between Texas A&M and their biggest rival, Texas, only draw 2,438?

The answer is simple: they charged admission. See, Texas A&M doesn't charge admission during the regular season, which allows them to get big crowds. But since you have to charge for playoff tickets per the NCAA, they drew 700 less than their regular season average.

I wonder what that number would have been had they not been playing Texas. Probably a lot less, I would imagine, since I'm sure plenty of Longhorn fans came to the game too.

Just another reason why what is happening at UP is unique to the rest of college women's soccer.

And check it out... the total number for the bottom 10 games is 5248. Merlo holds 4892, and would definitely have been sold out. And yet the NCAA thinks it is saving money by hosting it elsewhere... crazy.

OK... might be time for me to eat some crow here.

I just read a report that the Texas/Texas A&M game was postponed for several hours due to thunderstorms.

So... combine a late start time with heavy rains, and I guess that can explain why the attandance was so low. Oops!

yeah, that was the case, but think about it, at Merlo, those seats would already have been sold.

texas had a thunderstorm. wow, is that unusual? one of my biggest beefs going to merlo was having people seated in front of me in gortex from head to foot an pop up an umbrella. thankfully u of p banned umbrellas. come on people! you are in oregon. what is the umbrella for?
does anyone remember the ncaa game in 2005, portland vs. nebraska when in the 1st half the wind was blowing so hard the huskers keeper couldnt kick if past mid field an the there was a driving rain? an at half time the rain an wind stopped? i thought at the time, wow, clive is here. garrett echo'd the sentiment afterwards.
i have the same feeling this time around. an im just as nervous. anyone with me??

We're all nervous because we can't do anything about the outcome. The players are all nervous because they have to wait 'till Saturday.

But they get to hang around Garrett, and he's always like he OD's on turkey and just needs a nap.

they'll be fine--I'll be a wreck.

I take it back- we can do something-- Yell Loud!