SC Soccer Forums SCSoccer.com Forums College, Pro & International Soccer How many college games did you attend?

How many college soccer games did you attend this fall? Which teams did you support?

I find it interesting that with so many young people playing soccer and those adults involved with soccer don't support the college game. I know at the USC Women's matches this fall, only 100-200 people would show up.

I myself, only made a handful of games, but that's more than most can probably say. I don't think any of the other schools get big attendance outside of maybe the Clemson men's program.

What gives? What can colleges do to make the games more attractive? Should they move college soccer to the spring like high school?

about 10
half usc womens
half winthrop men and womens

Most of the problem I have seen is conflicts with training and games.

..about 2 Clemson women's games and probably 3 men's Clemson games.

I'd say the biggest problem in college attendance.. is one of two things (or both).

1) Education. Like HS..there just isn't that much support for soccer. Though there are certainly more soccer fans in college..reason #2 comes into play.

2) Class. It has nothing to do with fall or spring.. It's that soccer is played during the week..sometimes multiple matches in a week. Instead of on Saturdays (like football). I myself..would love to go to every home women's/men's soccer match. But that's really hard when you have projects and papers etc etc..


Just..my experience.

None! Who watches women's soccer? It's boring. Like watching a bunch of 13 year olds!

USC (Men's) - 4
SC State (Women) - 1 (vs. Winthrop)

I watched a couple of Friday night matches on CSTV and the CUSA Final for men's soccer as well as the College Cup last weekend.

I agree with the above drawbacks ... College soccer does not need to move to the spring, but the new CUSA schedule for USC had Carolina playing on Fridays/Sundays (home/away) much of the year and that prevents those of us in high schools from going to all of the games due to HS football commitments (assistant coaches, ticket-takers, fans, etc.) and club soccer (most of my Academy matches were on Sundays).

As for a remedy, I'm not sure that there is one, much like college baseball is not often attended by prepsters in the spring, due to their own (and their coaches) practices and games during the week.

I for sure, stress to my players to be in attendance as much as possible not only to learn the game, but to support the collegiate game in earnest!

I'm fairly familiar with USC and their respective attendance, but I'd like to know the response from the attendance around schools such as: Coastal Carolina (Conway/Myrtle Beach/North Myrtle Beach/Socastee/St.James); Coker (Hartsville); Lander (Greenwood/Emerald/Dixie); Newberry (Newberry/Mid-Carolina); Presbyterian (Clinton/Laurens/Union); Francis Marion (South Florence/West Florence/Wilson); USC-Aiken (Aiken/Fox Creek/Midland Valley/North Augusta/South Aiken); etc.

I think success also breeds attendance. No one wants to go spend 2 hours watching a bad game in any sport. USC women's has not had a lot of success and the lack of student attendance is also a major problem.

I have also said before that the lack of South Carolina players on the team does not promote the team very well. I personally have no interest in seeing a bunch of forgein and out of state players. I have no emotional connection to them. If Sheily Smith starts bringing in more SC players that I have watched for the last 4-8 years then I have an emotional connection and will make more scarifices to come to the games. When was the last time a thread was started on here talking about players at USC. Alex is the only one I remember and amazingly enough she is a SC player.

I did read a USC Upstate Women's Soccer media guide and they averaged 1400 fans a game. I am sure a lot of those fans are students but it is a lot of support. USC Upstate has also done a good job of getting local talent, success in their conference and is looking to recruit a lot of SC players over the next few years.

From the USC Upstate 2005 women's soccer cumulative season statistics :

ATTENDANCE SUMMARY UPSTATE OPP
---------------------------------------------------
Total.................... 639 1079
Dates/Avg Per Date....... 7/91 10/108
Neutral Site #/Avg....... 2/53

A women's program with an average of 1400 attendees in 2005 would be the 6th leading NCAA women's soccer program in terms of average attendance in the nation.