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NU 2010 Attendance Set to Break Record
We
knew that the great marketing push begun by Northwestern athletics this
year would pay dividends. The only questions were just how much
would it succeed, and how soon. We're finding out that the payoff
is immediate and significant.
With the recent announcement by Northwestern that its last two home
games (against Iowa at Ryan Field and against Illinois at Wrigley
Field) have sold out, we can now estimate the average home attendance
for the year. If the Wrigley Field game is included in NU's total
home games, the estimated average home attendance this year is
36,466.
That is the highest average home attendance since 1998, Gary Barnett's
last season as head coach (a season just one year removed from the
back-to-back championship seasons). More importantly, however,
2010's estimated attendance is a whopping 51% higher than last year's
average. The estimated increase per game of 12,276 versus last
year-- if it holds, once we have the final attendance numbers from the
Iowa and Illinois games-- would be the largest jump in per-game attendance in Northwestern history.
It breaks the record previously set in 1959, when Ara Parseghian's team
was ranked #2 in the nation for much of the season.
This is a
fantastic achievement and a great start on the road to make NU football
again a competitive venue. It demonstrates not only the success
of the current marketing effort by Jim Phillips and his team, but of
the work Coach Fitzgerald and his team have made to keep the Wildcats strong.
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