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I'm starting to think the AD's don't much care about attendance anymore. They are more interested in broadcast monies.

Lots of places are starting to serve alcohol. That might help attendance, but what does it say for the health of the sport itself?

I definitely agree, the AD's care more about broadcast money than attendance but I think that is a mistake because, as we have discussed ad-nauseam today's no-shows are tomorrow's no-views. 

My underlying theory on this is that maintaining at least the illusion of "scarcity" is important.  That is why I was mostly looking at percentage of capacity as opposed to raw attendance.  Ie, if Iowa puts 70k in their 70k stadium that would be better than Michigan, Penn State, or Ohio State putting 90k in their 105-108k stadiums. 

When I was a kid, Ohio State tickets were a rare find.  You were lucky if you got to go to an Ohio State game.  The tickets were sold to alumni and the wait-list to buy season tickets was years and years long.  That helps sell tickets because people don't want to miss an opportunity to go.  Nobody turned down Ohio State tickets to mow the lawn. 

Some of the change is due to the electronic secondary market.  Now anybody can get a ticket it is just a question of cost.  Still, I think that keeping the stadium at or near capacity needs to be a priority. 

I want to focus on BB and specifically my school for a minute. 

Over the last two years Ohio State's BB schedule (regular season only, includes pre-season tournaments but not B1G Tournament or NCAA Tournament games) has consisted of:
 - 19 B1G Home games (10 in 2017-18 and nine in 2018-19)
 - 18 B1G Road games (nine each year)
 - 1 B1G neutral site game (IL in the United Center)
 - 3 pre-season tournament games (Gonzaga, Stanford, and Butler in the 2017 PK80)
 - 2 B1G/ACC Challenge home games (Clemson, Syracuse)
 - 2 neutral site OOC games (UNC in NOLA, UCLA in Chicago)
 - 2 OOC road games (Cincy, Creighton)
 - 15 OOC home games (Robert Morris, Radford, TxSo, Northeastern, Bill&Mary, ApSt, Citadel, Miami-OH, Pur-Ft Wayne, ScST, Samford, CSU, Bucknell, YSU, High Point). 

Those 15 OOC games are just pathetic especially for a school that has the largest arena in the B1G yet has average attendance in the bottom half of the league.  Per the Worldwide leader, here are the attendance figures for those 15 games:
 - 11,128 Robert Morris
 - 10,425 Radford
 - 9,984 TxSO
 - 10,779 Northeastern
 - 11,158 Bill&Mary
 - 12,616 ApSt
 - 10,752 Citadel
 - 15,131 Miami, OH
 - 12,040 Purdue Fort Wayne
 - 10,935 ScST
 - 10,725 Samford
 - 13,276 CSU
 - 14,241 Bucknell
 - 12,637 YSU
 - 14,264 High Point

None of those 15 OOC home games had attendance of much more than 80% of Ohio State's capacity. 

My thinking is that the Buckeyes should have given up at least four of those crappy home games in exchange for two decent OOC home games and two decent OOC road games.  I would prefer if they would give up eight of those 15 crappy home games in exchange for four decent OOC home games and four decent OOC road games. 

I know in my waning years of attending every game, it got to be a chore

I know this feeling exactly.  We had season tickets for a number of years and it was great to watch the Buckeyes play Michigan, Texas, Oklahoma, USC, Wisconsin, Penn State, etc. 

The thing is that the average year also included a number of duds.  I'm roughly two hours from Columbus and that is without considering gameday traffic.  I rarely stayed in a hotel like what you talked about but it still blows a whole day unless it is a night game but that blows half of the next day.  Typical schedule:
Noon game (11 to you CST folks):
Leave home by 6am to get there and beat the traffic.  Get to Columbus and parked by around 9am.  Tailgate or go to Skull Session then the game.  Get out of the game at ~3:30.  Stop for dinner and to watch some of the later games on the way home.  Get home at 8-9. 

3:30 game (2:30 to you CST folks):
Leave later so you MIGHT be able to get something done before you leave.  Get to the Columbus and parked by around noon.  Tailgate or go to Skull Session then the game.  Get out of the game at ~7.  Stop for dinner and to watch some of the night games on the way home.  Get home around midnight. 

8pm game (7pm to you CST folks):
Leave much later so you can actually get some things done before you leave.  Get to Columbus and parked by around 4pm.  Tailgate or go to Skull Session then the game.  Get out of the game near midnight.  Stop for a snack on the way home and get home around 4am.  Sleep all morning the next day. 

All of that is fine for a good game but not worth it every single weekend for crappy games. 

If the Ohio State AD put me in charge of scheduling Ohio State's OOC BB games my thought would be to first avoid the REALLY bad match-ups.  Second, I'd look to add some additional decent OOC match-ups and the schools I would look to schedule would be those schools, like Ohio State, that are good at both BB and FB.  Here are the top-35 at both sports as compiled by me from the AP's top-100 BB and FB program lists that came out a while back:

School	BB	FB	Total
Ohio State	12	1	13
Michigan	14	6	20
Notre Dame	18	4	22
Oklahoma	20	3	23
Alabama	30	2	32
Michigan State	13	21	34
Florida	28	10	38
North Carolina	2	37	39
Texas	36	8	44
Iowa	23	25	48
Syracuse	9	40	49
Tennessee	38	14	52
Arkansas	31	22	53
USC	50	5	55
Duke	3	53	56
LSU	47	11	58
Maryland	17	41	58
Pitt	35	24	59
Wisconsin	37	23	60
Purdue	24	37	61
Illinois	11	51	62
Arizona	8	54	62
Mizzou	29	35	64
Louisville	7	58	65
Kansas	5	64	69
Kencucky	1	68	69
Washington	52	18	70
Stanford	40	31	71
GaTech	45	27	72
FSU	64	9	73
West Virginia	42	32	74
OkSU	34	42	76
NCST	22	56	78
Indiana	6	73	79
Minnesota	43	39	82

So if I were scheduling Ohio State's OOC BB games I would look to schedule:
Notre Dame
Oklahoma
Alabama
Florida
North Carolina
Texas
Syracuse
Tennessee
Arkansas
USC
Duke
LSU
Pitt
Arizona
Mizzou
Louisville
Kansas
Kentucky
Washington
Stanford
GaTech
FSU
WVU
OkSU
NCST
Clemson (#36, not listed above)

yup, I used to go to all the games when I was young

now, I skip the home opener, because regardless of opponent, everyone seems to want to attend that game.  Drives up prices and clogs up the city.  Besides, that's some good golf weather.

I also skip the cupcake games such as Bethane-Cookman.  Unless my brother comes to town.  He likes the cupcake games, cheap tickets and most times a "W".

I also usually skip the marquee game such as Ohio St. this season.  Tickets will be high and the Huskers haven't shown they can compete in that game.

I also skip the Day after Thanksgiving game because of the timing and the holiday and many times the weather is rough. (getting old)

so, this season, I plan to attend Husker games vs N. Illinois, Northwestern, Minnesota(on the road), and Wisconsin.  Possibly Indiana, maybe not.

hey, if any good people plan a trip to Lincoln, I'll adjust my schedule, meet them there early, stay late, and try to be a good host.

Nubbz has a chance at winning the hotel/lodging lottery for the Bucks/Huskers game

I'm just saying that strength of programs being considered, Notre Dame would probably fare better than Iowa State vs the Hawks these days or the past couple decades

Hayden Fry was the guy that taught Bill Snyder to "never schedule a loss"

but, you're right, Sewer City is about as far from Dubuque as one can get.  The only thing we share is Hwy 20 and a mighty river.