Announced attendance for yesterday’s 76-0 rout of Howard by the Eagles was 26,132, with a decent number arriving in their seats after the score was already 14-0 BC and the game was functionally over. This is the second straight week of sub-30,000 attendance at Alumni Stadium, following last week’s 29,626 vs. Maine. That mark was the lowest season-opening attendance at BC since the stadium’s expansion.
Boston College vs. Howard Attendance Lowest For Any BC Home Game Since 2009
The hits keep on coming.
Yesterday’s attendance is the lowest for any BC game since 25,165 attended the Eagles’ tilt with Kent State on September 12, 2009. In terms of historical lows, this game joins the Kent State game, last week’s Maine game, BC-Maine 2014, and BC-Buffalo 2006 as the only games with sub-30,000 attendance since Alumni was expanded in 1994.
An interesting bit of context and precedent here: much like this year, 2009 started with a pair of home games on back to back weekends against opponents that were not particularly attractive to home fans. The end result was similar both years. BC’s ensuing home game in 2009 was an ACC matchup against Wake Forest, and attendance bounced right back up to 40,892. With Florida State coming to town on Friday night, and with all the attendant ESPN hype that game will bring, we’ll see if attendance makes a similar jump.
It’s worth noting that in spite of the sparse crowd, the student section was pretty much jam packed, as it was for the Maine game as well. It emptied out early, but you can’t really blame anyone for leaving that game at halftime; in boxing, the fight would have been stopped.
