Great thread.

Can't wait for the indepth look at Syracuse.

Penn State must have the best nickname. Maybe OSU.

great thread

i have acouple of question which is nagging my brain.i fire it right away

why is college football more popular than nfl?(in every country the top league has more viewers, sponsors etc ,like premier league in england)

r tickets to college football games too cheap compared to nfl?or the fans are put off from nfl due to over Commercialisation of top league.

if the americans love football so much why hasnt it spread from america?.
(i know its some what popular in canada)
whereas baseball was introduced in japan korea etc after world war 2 when millions of american troops where there.
recently because of american influence baseball spread among central america, carribeans, some latin america countries but no american football which as figures suggest is top american sport

I'm 99% the students get in for free, for everyone else it isn't as expensive as going to the NFL.

What helps its popularity is the long history, players supposedly not playing for money and mostly playing for the one college for their career and in their hometown.

Like DH said.

College football has a much older tradition then the NFL, some going back to the 19th century whereas many NFL franchises are post WW2, with some only in the last 10-20 years. Schools can't and so don't relocate like franchises can.

No matter where one moves, ex college students can always call their alma mater home, so you have lifetime fans, though they may also move to a new city and gain an affinity for the local team.
Player movement from school to school is much less likely, engendering home team loyalty.

- More color, more pageantry, more traditional, familiar celebration of the 'American dream' with promotion of local loyalties and values.

- As a result of above factors, they have bigger, more loyal, more rowdy, more 'genuine' dedicated crowds than the NFL, which has its focus on 'entertainment packages' and 'franchise players', whereas with NCAA, its all about the honour of your home college and local community (and in many smaller states, it basically represents the whole state which don't have any pro franchises (e.g. Nebraska Cornhuskers, based at Lincoln)

It is amateur sport uncompromised - after some payment scandals some years back, the NCAA now rigorously polices and enforces this. Amateur sport can be 'pure' and great, but nearly always now limited in dollars, fans and TV. However, the NCAA situation is different. The fans, and primetime big TV dollars are there - hence so are the mega stands continually being expanded.

Also, as the game itself, it's much more open to a variety of systems. You can have different styles of offense and defence and the athlete's aren't quite the trained machines that they are in the NFL yet, so mistakes are more likely, whereas sometimes NFL games are too perfect - yet sterile. A case where the highest standard isn't necessarily the best to actually watch.

Straight off, I can think of 4 reasons-

1) Soccer got to Latin America before American Football, and established itself quickly and comprehensively around 100 years ago, when American football was still evolving from rugby and was very much confined as a US college sport only.

2) The Latin American and East Asian countries you mentioned don't have any equivalent NCAA tradition that American football draw upon for so much of its support. Whereas baseball went pro way back in the 19th century, so has never been reliant on an NCAA tradition, and was able to expand much earlier than American Football.

3) American Football, with all its combat gear, is an expensive sport to play, and beyond the means of most in poor third world countries - and also a disincentive in rich countries for most. Soccer is cheap, basic and easy to understand, and to have scratch matches etc. Even in the USA, soccer has far far more participants at grass root levels than American Football, which is still mostly confined to schools, colleges and pro level.

4) American Football has specialised roles - Many requiring huge, strong, monster types but with quick reflexes and high speed over short distances, others smaller but with blistering speed and agility. This rules out most Asians immediately, who tend to be neither strong or alternatively quick enough.

I'm loving this thread and gaining a newfound appreciation for the stadiums and the kullchhaaaaaaa of College Football.

Thanks Guys.

Hi Guys, I'm glad everyone else is getting something out of this thread, I was a bit worried that I'd only be doing for my own benefit I have next to no experience of NCAA football, everything I knew about gridiron up until recently was about the NFL. All I've learnt has been through net research but it's been eye-opening and really enjoyable.

If anyone wants to help out and make it a collaborative effort the next stadium on the list (#5) is the Rose Bowl which will cover the stadium, the Rose Bowl game and UCLA. Otherwise, I'll post it on Monday arvo.

On ticketing arrangements, when I was reading about Tennessee I noticed that the Uni has upped its season ticket prices


compare to the NFL where average tickets for a family of four range from $40 per person (Buffalo) to $90 per person (New England)
http://www.teammarketing.com/fci.cfm?pa ... nfl_05.cfm

there is some overlap in ticketing costs but the NFL is on average significantly more expensive.

That said, I perceive the NFL and NCAA not to be competitors so much as two complimentary organisations. With the historical exception of Green Bay, the NFL has always based itself in large cities. Like Sandy said, the NFL is a post war organisation (ie/ this was only the 40th year of the Super Bowl and when it started they weren't sure it would survive. At least that's what Grampa Simpson implied) and professional football came of age just as the TV era was kicking on. TV revenue and corporate revenue has always been a significant driving force for the league and so clubs could really only ever survive in big cities (almost always 1,000,000+) which have plenty of corporates.

College football on the other hand was already well established, but its roots were in rural areas. The Unis do attract fans from the cities but in general, it's very rare for the 117 NCAA Div I-A teams and the 32 NFL teams to share the same territory. Off the top of my head the only ones are:-
-Miami (Dolphins & Hurricanes)
-Pittsburgh (Steelers & Panthers)
-Buffalo (Bills & can't think of their name but they're not famous)
-Atlanta (Falcons & Georgia Tech Yellowjackets)
-Tampa (Buccaneers & Southern Florida Bulls [which is a Uni that has only avery young football program 1990s I think]
-the Arizona Cardinals are tenants of the Arizona State Sun Devils
-the San Francisco Bay Area has the 49ers and the Oakland Raiders + the California Golden Bears [Berkley] and Stanford Cardinal which are big time football programs in their own right.

That's not a great deal of overlap.

There are great swathes of the US that don't have millionaire cities but have a great desire to see football, that's why so many teams get crowds so much bigger than a student population or alumni could provide. In the South and Midwest college football really fills the void.

Consider Texas. It's a lot like Australia:
- 20m population
- two cities around the 4m mark (Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth)
- some smaller millionaire cities (San Antonio, El Paso, Austin)

but only 2 NFL teams. Imagine if Australia had only two football teams, one in Melbourne the other in Sydney. But Texas has UTexas at Austin, Texas A&M in College Station, Texas Tech in Lubbock, University of Texas, El Paso (UTEP), Baylor in Waco, Rice in Houston as well as Texas Christian and Southern Methodist, both in Dallas-Fort Worth.

That's why colleges are successful they bring the sport to cities or well-populated areas that can't support a club in financially elite competition.

And the unwritten law in the US is that Friday night is for High school games, Saturday for colleges and Sunday & Monday nights for the NFL. So there's little clash in TV scheduling as well.

So who has been to these grounds?

Many people on this forum have travelled to or live in North America. I want more anecdotes!!!!!

Okay, so here is my "local" stadium in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. It's home of the University of Alabama's Crimson Tide (which, by the way, I have to say is a pretty cool nickname). Despite being called The Crimson Tide, the teams' mascot is actually an Elephant (nicknamed Al). Alabama also has on 12 national championships, which is the most, followd by Southern Cal with 11.

To cheer the team on people shout "Roll Tide!"

Below is an aerial picture taken from the university's website



Here are some photos I took on a walk this morning (I live about 5 blocks from the stadium)



This photo shows the new north end zone stand currently being constructed. When it is finished the stadium will have a 91,000 seat capacity.



This is a shot from the southern end zone (a grave yard is behind me). This thing is the back of the jumbotron.



And, finally, this is a shot from the student section taken circa 2004. Alabama was hosting Oklahoma (who won and went on to the national championship where they lost to LSU, which is a yearly rival in the SEC West for Alabama). This was a big game since most big colleges only have conference play or weak opponents at home so they can make a lot of money, but this was a home and away series (Alabama lost in Oklahoma the year before).



Going to games is really interesting. But the stadiums (all college) are pretty cheaply designed. For some rich Alumni they have seats or skyboxes (corporate boxes) but for everyone else it's bleeches, which usually means standing and a game can take a long time. It's a strange experience watching the games at the stadium because of the way football is played. People get really excited for a play, go quiet and then get pumped up for another play. It's so different from watching rugby or league. More exhausting, I think.

No alcohol at the ground except what is sneaked in (and there's plenty sneaked in). NCAA rules.

Finally, something big in the South (where football is a religion) is tailgating and hundreds of people come to games days in advance and camp in Winnie Bagoes or rent apartments (just for 7 home games). This place is absolute chaos during a football weekend.

I might have some photos I can dig up to show you all (or show y'all, as it were ).

#5, the Rose Bowl, Pasadena (greater LA), California

In 1897, the city of Pasadena purchased ten acres of land located in the Arroyo Seco area of Pasadena, for the Tournament of Roses Association In 1921, it was decided that building should commence, and the structure was built with the south end open, giving the stadium a "horseshoe" shape. The design of the stadium was intended to accommodate as many patrons as possible, sitting close to the action. The first portion of the stadium was completed for less money than had been budgeted, and the seating capacity at the time was 57,000.

The stadium was given the name "Rose Bowl" by a police reporter named Harlan W. Hall, who had the Yale Bowl in mind when thinking of how an expanded structure would look.



On October 28, 1922 the first football game was played in the Rose Bowl with the University of California Bears battling the University of Southern California Trojans. The Rose Bowl was officially dedicated on January 1, 1923. The south end of the stadium was closed in 1929, giving the structure its famous, sight line-enhancing elliptical shape. With this addition, the capacity was increased to 76,000. Three years later the capacity increased again to 86,000 and to just over 100,000 in 1949. In 1982, the UCLA Bruins made their debut at the Rose Bowl. The current official seating capacity is 92,542.


The Rose Bowl is known mainly for the New Year's Day football game, but other events have called on the Rose Bowl to host their events. In addition to hosting five NFL Super Bowl Games, the 1994 World Cup, and the 1999 Women's World Cup, the Rose Bowl Stadium is home to UCLA football.



UCLA



The Rose Bowl is also the home stadium of the UCLA Bruins.

The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), is a public, coeducational university located in the residential area of Westwood within the city of Los Angeles. Founded in 1919, it is the second-oldest campus in the University of California system (after Berkely which is officially known as the University of California –“Cal”) and the largest university in terms of enrollment in the state of California.

The Bruins play in the powerful Pacific Ten conference (with University of Southern California, Stanford, California (Berkely), Oregon, Oregon State, Washington, Washington State, Arizona and Arizona State). They have been champions of the Pac-Ten 11 times and were joint National champions in 1954 with Ohio State.



In 2005, the Bruins averaged 64,218 in a 92,000 seat stadium. Ticket prices are also pretty cheap at US$15 for the games that aren’t against USC, making these possibly the most accessible matches to see if you’re an Aussie tourist who happens to be travelling through the US in their autumn.


Rose Bowl, the game.
The Rose Bowl is one of the most important annual games in US football. It is one of four major post-season bowl games called the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) that are nationally televised and come with considerable prestige and purses (approx $15m). The other three are the Fiesta Bowl (Phoenix), the Orange Bowl (Miami) and the Sugar Bowl (New Orleans).

Note that college football does not have any real kind of a paly-off system and instead good regular season performance is rewarded with an invitation to a bowl game by the game’s organisers.

The Rose Bowl game traditionally invites the no.1 teams from the Pacific Ten and the Big Ten. However, in recent years one of the BCS bowl games has been substituted with the BCS National Championship game in which the nationally ranked no 1 and 2 are paired. In 2006, the BCS game was the Rose Bowl, which was played by offensive powerhouses Texas (in its second straight Rose Bowl appearance and second appearance overall, holding a 19-game winning streak) and Southern California (attempting to become only the second school to claim three straight national championships and further its 34-game winning streak in its 30th Rose Bowl appearance, the most by any school).

Texas v USC


Texas won in a 41-38 thriller thanks to Vince Young's 467 total yards of offense, of which 200 came rushing the ball. He outshined USC's Heisman Trophy winners, running back Reggie Bush and quarterback Matt Leinart. The win secured the National Championship for the 2005 Texas Longhorn football team. Several sports analysts soon after the game were naming it among the most exciting championship bowl games.

awesome stuff mate.

can you give a thorough explanation of scheduling?

my impression (probably flawed) is that teams get to pick their own after certain obligations have been attended to. They are obliged to play a certain number of games against teams from within their conference. Most of them have certain long-standing rivalries with teams from other conferences which are played annually (many of which are derbies like Florida (SEC) v Florida State (ACC)). Which would leave a small number of spare games (say 3 of 11) which can be scheduled against any other team they can agree with. But in doing that they would be wary of scheduling against teams that they are likely to lose to or who they can beat but who aren’t good enough to boost their ranking.

And an independent like Notre Dame simply picks all its games as it sees fit.

How close is that? How is Alabama’s season scheduled?

Well, generally, it works like this. In order to buy a football ticket (for joe public) you pay $35 per ticket, but in buying season tickets (since you can't buy singles) you have to also "donate" money to the univeristy. Rich alumni give a lot of money to sit in a good place or a skybox. Furthermore, student tickets (here, at least) are only $5 and can be sold to the public if they pay $35 to have them upgraded. You need a student ID to get in.

Incidentally, 95% of Alabama fans did not go to school here.

As big programs, the winning SEC, PAC 10, BIG 12, BIG 10, ACC and Big East schools, all want to have at least 7 home games (seasons are now allowed to have 12 regular season games), but in the SEC, for example, conference play is 8 games (Alabama is in the SEC West). Alabama has to play, Ole Miss (Univeristy of Mississippi), LSU (Louisiana State University), Mississippi State, University of Arkansas and its in state rival Auburn University every year. Alabama also plays another rival, the University of Tennessee, every year too. It also plays two other SEC East rival every year. This year it was Florida (whom they beat) and next year they travel to Florida and South Carolina (next year it will be Vanderbilt).

Of those 8 games, 4 are at home, so Alabama has schedule 4 more home games, all against dreadful opponents: Hawaii, Duke (which is a home and away series: they will play at Duke next year), Louisianna-Monroe and Florida International. Alabama pays each school about $500,000 upwards of $1,000,000 because that's more money than the school would make playing at home, but Alabama with a home crowd of 91,000 stands to make a lot more on that and virtually gets a guaranteed victory (but, not always).

This whole thing essentially guarantees a big pay day for the univeristy, and a record over .500, so they will be able to go to a bowl game (another cash cow).

All the big schools do this. Notre Dame, as an independent, chooses all its games BUT it has long rivlaries so every year it always plays Southern Cal, Michigan, Michigan State, Army, etc...

The big home and away series are kind of dying out, but since the schools get bowl games mainly based on poll rankings having a "quality" victory is a really good thing. This year Texas beat Ohio State in Columbus, Ohio and that really helped their rankings early on. The gamble is, if you lose, then your chances of playing in a big bowl game go south with the loss.

I don't understand how a team can play twice as many home games in a season as away games (8:4)? Where's the parity? You'd need other teams to balance that out by playing more away games than their fair share. Will 'Bama play more away games in future or did they in the recent past? Or have the away teams been "bought off" with a big slice of the gate (in much the same way as FA Cup ties have been swapped around in the past)? Is this a perpetual feature of college football?

Interesting statistic about the student percentage at games. Even for programs with mass popular support I'd thought current students and alums would account for at least a quarter of the gate. Is it like that at other schools?

What proportion of the crowd is made up of away fans?

ps: thanks for all the insights - makes a world of difference

Well it's not fair, but for a small school like, say, Louisiana-Monroe, who probably scratch to get 25,000 to a game, then playing in Alabama makes sense, since they will make more playing away from home than at it. It also supposedly helps in recruiting since they are playing against big schools.

Most of the big schools played 7 home games and 4 away but the NCAA has allowed the season to extend by one game to 12, and thus many schools scrambled this year to add another game.

I think Alabama is partly a world of its own. Alabama is crazy (places like Nebraska and Oklahoma are also crazy too). And since there isn't a pro sport in the state people root for either Alabama or Auburn much as any Kiwi or Aussie would root for the local [inser you code here ] team. Some fans who didn't go to school think poorly of people who went to school here since they are fans by association whereas the fans who didn't go "chose" to be Alabama fans and so are "real" fans.

If you're really interested in getting a sense of college football fandom I recommend ordering "Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer" by Warren St. John (he writes for the NY Times) and travelled in an RV with Alabama fans for the 1999 football season (in which they went to the Orange Bowl and lost ot Tom Brady-led Michigen in OT).

As for away fans, I think Alabama sells about 5000 tickets to the opposing school. Until recently you could see a huge block of the stadium in the opposing team's colours, but someone decided it would be better to break up the ticket blocks into smaller groups and disperse them around the ground and this was supposed to nullify any section of the crowd getting taken over be the opposition's fans. It kind of works too.

#6 Sanford Stadium, University of Georgia (Athens, Georgia – 100km north-east of Atlanta)



UGA is the largest higher education institution in the State of Georgia. It was the first state-chartered university in the United States, making it the birthplace of the American system of public higher education. It was incorporated January 27, 1785 by the Georgia General Assembly, which gave its trustees, the Senatus Academicus of the University of Georgia, 40,000 acres (160 km²) for the purposes of founding a “college or seminary of learning.” Today, it is the flagship university of the University System of Georgia, with enrollment of approximately 32,000 students. It is consistently ranked as one of the top public universities and best higher education values in the country.



The Bulldogs play in the Southeastern Conference (SEC) in the East Division with Florida, Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee and Vanderbilt. It also has a historic rivalry with Auburn (SEC West), referred to as "the Deep South's oldest rivalry." The biggest rivalries, though, are between the Bulldogs and the Atlantic Coast Conference's (ACC) Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets [from Atlanta] ("Clean Old-Fashioned Hate") and the Florida Gators ("The World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party"). The UGA-UF game is held annually in late October/early November in Jacksonville, Florida: a supposedly neutral site. Often referred to as "the world's largest outdoor cocktail party," this event is a must-do for many UGA undergrads as well as alumni. In addition, UGA enjoyed a strong rivalry with the nearby Clemson Tigers (ACC) for many years in football, especially in the 1980s. That rivalry is still intense in other sports.



Sanford Stadium is the on-campus playing venue for football at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia. The 92,746 seat stadium is the fifth largest on-campus stadium in the NCAA. The stadium is notable for its well-planned harmonious expansions over its long history. Games played there are described as being "Between the Hedges" for the hedges that have marked the field since its opening day in 1929.




Named for the late Dr. S. V. Sanford, former president of the University and Chancellor of the University system, Georgia's Sanford Stadium marked its 70th anniversary in 1999. An overflow crowd of 30,000 saw the stadium's first game on October 12, 1929, when Yale University made its only trip South. Final score: Georgia 15, Yale 0.



Through the years, the stadium has experienced various expansion projects. In 1940, lights were added to the field level paving the way to the first Sanford Stadium night game, a 7-7 tie between Georgia and Kentucky on October 26, 1940.

Eventually, the East end of the stadium was enclosed, more lights added, and the capacity increased to 82,122. The 1991 project cost the University Athletic Association $3.7 million With a $25 million expansion completed in 2003, Sanford Stadium added a second upper deck on the north side bringing the new stadium capacity to 92,020--the fifth largest on-campus stadium in the country.





Legendary Sanford Stadium added yet another chapter to its history by hosting the medal round of the 1996 Olympic soccer competition watched via television by over 3 billion people around the world.



The football team has celebrated more recent success, compared to some relatively lean years in the early 1990s. The University of Georgia has won 2 national championships: a shared national title in 1942, and a consensus national championship in 1980. In addition to their 2 national championships, the Bulldogs have won 12 Southeastern Conference (SEC) championships, the most recent coming in 2005 against the Tigers of Louisiana State University, 34-14. The SEC championship game is played at the Georgiadome in Atlanta, the home of the NFL’s Falcons.

In 2005, Georgia averaged 92,701 fans to their 6 home games. They finished the regular season with a 9-2 record. They then went to the SEC championship game and beat Louisiana State. As the #1 team from the SEC they were invited to the Sugar Bowl (again at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta) which they lost 38-35 to West Virgina from the ACC.

------
Next: Louisiana State University, the first of a string of Tigers

The seating gradient at the Rose Bowl looks too flat to me. Sanford Stadium looks impressive. That view from the top is not off-putting.