With the Chargers gone and Mission Valley up for grabs, it seems everybody is suddenly *keenly* interested in San Diego State’s football attendance. Trouble is, that number has always been kind of tough to pin down. The official count is a tickets-distributed figure, and that often doesn’t jibe with the butts in seats. THE HATERZ on the other hand have it on good authority that literally zero people have ever attended an Aztecs football game. We’re here to find the truth, people.
Game
September 16, 2017: SDSU vs. Stanford University. The Blackout. Read the recap.
Drawing cards
- Stanford has been one of the top Power Five programs west of the Mississip for the better part of a decade.
- It was coming on the heels of a Power Five win over ASU which had some people righteously jacked up.
- It was lovely day, roughly 80 degrees cooler at kickoff than the SkyShow game.
Mitigating factors
- Stanford is a private school without the same number of alumni as your typical Pac-12 public.
- Thanks to dynamic pricing, the cheapest seats in the house were going for $34.
- Kaaboo was going on and you know how much the kids love David Spade and Smashmouth.
Announced attendance
43,040
Not the massive crowd some might have been hoping for, but it was slightly bigger than the Cal crowd last year and definitely big enough to make STADIUM rock. Based on noise level, I estimate Aztecs fans outnumbered Cardinal fans 10-1.
Evidence: Exhibit A
I took these photos during the second quarter. Note: My phone is utter crap.
Evidence: Exhibit B
These photos were crowd-sourced from our loyal Twitter followers.
Hey, wait, that’s not …
Fuckin smartasses.
Verdict
Rating the official attendance figure on a scale of one to five fudge elves, with one being accurate and five being fudged to the point of demanding a public records request.
Completely legit. That was exactly what a crowd of 43,040 looks like. Honestly, in terms of butts in seats, it was probably a bigger crowd than SkyShow. Great turnout. One fudge elf.
