Our former AD slowly priced out the average fan over his tenure with everything from parking and ticket prices to red tape and TAF requirements. Now they want to know why butts aren't in seats. I assume he isn't/we aren't the only story like that.
But also, the culture change is real, though how it's precisely affecting the current attendance slump, I don't know. I haven't been to a game in BR since 2013 (shoutout to Erin, wherever she is, for the free tix), but the change in crowd type and attitude was noticeable and palpable compared to the aughts back to the 80's, when I first started going to games. i.e., after 5 years of a QB black hole, Mettenburger was making SEC history with OBJ and Jarvis Landry with an outstanding back in Jeremy Hill. And while seeking revenge for the previous year's Florida loss, the crowd was....well, the crowd that day was a bunch of bored housewives, far as I could tell, always on their phones, not watching the action, not cheering, generally failing to demonstrate anything I associate with a Death Valley crowd. From the conversation around me, I learned more about people's HOAs and which moms weren't pulling their weight with the middle school organized functions than anything about what was going on in the rather exciting game down on the field. It was the weirdest thing, and it signaled that LSU football had become a social event, like going to a fancy fair, something that people with money are likely to casually do, while being less of a thing that Joe Fan would give a left testicle for and scream shirtless through 30 degree weather for 3 hours. Poor Joe Fan can't afford to go to a lot of games anymore.
To Badger's point, and the people wondering about the interest moving forward, I don't even know that old school fans will reliably maintain the status quo for their part. My head is spinning from what's happening with the transfer portal, and I'm just talking about my team....one team. I can't keep track of who's staying, who's leaving, and who's coming. Massive roster upheaval and turnover is going to make it hard to lock in and really root for kids, and that's already happened to me with some guys who already transferred to LSU for a year before leaving for the NFL. They turned in great seasons, but I didn't know who they were when they hit the field, and by the time I got to know them and their game, they were gone. Add in the NIL stuff and it's just a massive free agency. I may always watch, but as far as caring anywhere as much as I used to, count me out. One of the things I loved most about college football was its amateur status, the idea that kids came mostly to represent their state, but at least that they came to represent their school, because LSU was where they chose and where they wanted to be. In the same way I've never loved the NFL because I've never felt most players truly care about the team they're on or city they're in because most guys will leave for any number of reasons, there was a representation and a brotherhood unique to cfb that attracted me. The portal and NIL, I think, are going to kill that at a rapid pace, far more than anything else that's already been done to the sport that made it less attractive.
I can't say that I won't be watching in years to come, but it also wouldn't surprise me either. I've already noticed I'm much less invested in the team the past few years. And lest anyone think that's because we sucked for two years, this was already the case in 2019 when they were on top of the world. I find myself much more attached to and sentimental about the 2003 and 2007 teams than 2019. Hell, even the 2011 one, which ended in disaster.
It would be ironic if in finally allowing student athletes to cash in their own market value, the sport imploded with lack of interest and all that money went away.
