Big Ten Attendance: The big guys draw and we have wet and/or invisible fans

Okay, this is a little disturbing and scary.  I'm almost in agreement with Steve Politi on something.

I write this feature to 1) point out that Rutgers can draw crowds and 2) encourage people to keep coming out to games.  Then you get Saturday against Wisconsin.  An awful day weather-wise and an ugly two-game losing streak that looked like it would get to three, and, of course, it did.  And Politi was forgiving of those fans who didn't show.  And I guess I can agree.

People came late and left early.  I want to say that's wrong (it is!) but I can't blame them.  And that brings us to.....

Indiana

The last home game.  A Rutgers team coming in at 5-4, looking for that elusive sixth-bowl-eligibility win.  Will people show up?  Man, I hope so.  It is certainly winnable.  And a second B1G win and bowl eligibility in a season that, for most pundits, was going to be an unmitigated disaster would be enormous.

Are there tickets available? Oh, yeah!  The diagram from the Rutgers Ticket Office below shows red wherever there are seats available.  Not saying there are scores of seats in each section, but they are there.  This is from Monday at about 1:10 pm.

And the secondary market?  As of this writing, there were over 2,100 tickets to the game posted on StubHub. And Tix City, the official secondary ticket market for Rutgers Athletics, had plenty as well, some as low as $25.

The 52,797 announced crowd for the Wisconsin game meant RU sold tickets.  But they didn't put fannies in the seats.  What happens on November 15?

So how's the weather?

The three B1G/big games we've had at home this year did not feature the best of weather conditions.  The Wisconsin game was horrible, but it rained all day leading up to ttfp and Michigan was a sketchy day, too.  Yet, we actually drew for the Nitty Kitties and Wolverines and we sold a bunch of tix for the Badgers.

Attendance 'round the Big Ten

Iowa and Nebraska were both home.  Both are in the running for the West title.  Both won and had very good crowds on hand.  There were over 100,000 miserable fans in Happy Valley to see ttfp lose to Maryland.  Cue the rainbows and bluebirds singing.

The B1G's big boys were all home so the conference attendance for the week topped a half million. Rutgers continues to hold onto the eighth best attendance/ticket sales in he conference.  RU averages 51,260.

Schadenfreude, or our weekly look at Syracuse football attendance

The Orange didn't disappoint as the circus tent of the tundra (I'm coining that as the new name for the Carrier Dome - copyright pending) was just a bit over 80% filled.  Of greater significance, of course, was the fact that the 'Cuse fell to 3-6 on the season, 1-4 in the ACC whatever division they're in.

Schadenfreude redux