BY CHUCK OLIVER
ATLANTA, GA – There’s a phrase every college football fan knows that has all but disappeared from the sport.

“Tough ticket.”

Week 3 in Tuscaloosa, alright, THAT will be a tough ticket. Clemson at Notre Dame, yep.

Virtually every game on YOUR team’s schedule? Yeah, you can get tickets now more than ever.

Dennis Dodd wrote last week at CBSSports.com that college football attendance in 2019 dipped to its lowest level since 1996.

. . . and how many college stadiums are smaller than they were in 1996? I dare say not more than a handful and every one of those would have context to it (such as SMU “we played at Texas Stadium, now we play at” either Amon G. or Gerald Ford, I cant keep those two straight, but context is there).

Funny thing is, there ARE stadiums that are getting smaller now, but just compared to, say, 5 years ago, not further. Go back 25 years? It was bigger, bigger, bigger, like the idiocy of finishing the north end zone at Grant Field. See, that was late 90s/early 00s. The increasing trend now is at play off North Avenue, as well. The ideas being kicked around, or maybe already approved, is to reduce capacity in exchange for many fewer seats, but with a special experience tied to them for higher dollars.

And Bama is doing it at Bryant-Denny, too. It’s not just the programs that traditionally have a problem filling the joint. Get ready for the new norm of fewer people, but even more on-premises separation based on level of donation, ticket price etc.

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