clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Purdue Football Attendance: Ross-Ade has Another Big Jump

If you win, they will come.

NCAA Football: Ohio State at Purdue Thomas J. Russo-USA TODAY Sports

Purdue football’s home season is now complete and at least it was entertaining. Purdue hosted three ranked teams and beat all of them. Ironically, it went 0-4 against unranked teams at home. Of the seven home games, five came down to the final minute and three were decided on the game’s final snap. It was a strange, strange season to say the least.

The good news is that we saw a significant boost in attendance for the second straight year.

Purdue Football Attendance

2016 Attendance 2017 Attendance 2018 Attendance 2013 (Hazell year 1) Attendance
2016 Attendance 2017 Attendance 2018 Attendance 2013 (Hazell year 1) Attendance
Eastern Kentucky 32,074 Ohio 45,633 Northwestern 47,410 Indiana State 50,165
Cincinnati 33,068 Michigan 60,042 E. Michigan 47,661 Notre Dame 61,127
Nevada 41,607 Minnesota 42,085 Missouri 48,103 Northern Illinois 54,258
Iowa 40,239 Nebraska 41,411 Boston College 47,119 Nebraska 47,203
Penn State 33,157 Illinois 46,027 Ohio State 60,716 Ohio State 51,243
Northwestern 30,548 Indiana 52,105 Iowa 60,716 Iowa 41,038
Wisconsin 30,465 Wisconsin 46,114 Illinois 37,459
TOTAL 241,158 TOTAL 287,303 TOTAL 357839 TOTAL 342493
AVERAGE 34451.14286 AVERAGE 47883.83333 AVERAGE 51119.85714 AVERAGE 48927.57143

This year’s numbers are buoyed by a pair of sellouts against Ohio State and Iowa. The Wisconsin was technically the worst attended game of the year, but weather may have been a factor there. We gained an average of almost 3,400 fans per game, and having a 7th home game this year as opposed to just six last year was a huge factor. That’s an overall attendance bump of 70,000 fans.

The biggest jump is, of course, from Hazell’s final season in 2016 and this year. In just two years we’re up almost 17,000 fans per game. Each game this year had more than 46,000 fans per game while that season’s largest crowd was 41,607. If you have a conservative estimate that each additional fan paid $35 per ticket that’s a revenue increase of $4,165,000 in ticket sales alone from 2016 to 2018.

We’ll be tracking this next year again, but it is very nice to see Purdue’s revenues overall are on the upswing too.