BYU’s 2019 Home Football Games Produced Best Attendance In Six Years

PROVO, Utah – College athletic departments around the country are trying to find ways to get more fans in the stands. For BYU, the Cougars found a way to produce their biggest home football crowds in six years this past season.

The average attendance for a BYU football game in 2019 was 59,457. The highest per-game attendance since 2013 where BYU saw an average of 61,225, but even more impressive than that is the 2019 home crowds averaged 7,000 more fans than the 2018 homestand.

After BYU produced a 4-9 season in 2017, crowds at LaVell Edwards Stadium hit a historic low. Only 52,476 fans showed up to home games in 2018, the lowest per-game average since LaVell Edwards Stadium expanded in 1982.

A large uptick in home game attendance is significant for BYU’s revenue streams. BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe acknowledged last January in his annual roundtable that tickets sold to home football and men’s basketball games are a “very important” figure to the Cougars bottom lines.

BYU #2 in attendance out West

Despite the dip in attendance in 2018, BYU still ranked fourth in average attendance out west. That ranking jumped to number two in 2019. BYU’s 59,457 fans per game were only behind the Washington Huskies who averaged 68,238 fans at Husky Stadium.

USC and UCLA who play in larger stadiums that hold a far greater capacity than BYU finished behind the Cougars in attendance out west this past season. The Trojans were third averaging 59,358 fans and UCLA saw 43,849 people showing up to the Rose Bowl for home games.

COUGAR NATION 💪#BYUFOOTBALL #GoCougs pic.twitter.com/gSboCyR8L7

— BYU FOOTBALL (@BYUfootball) December 12, 2019

With the spike in attendance in 2019, BYU finished this season back in the top 25 for attendance in all of college football, checking in at number 22 and putting them number one among programs outside the Power 5 conferences.

Great matchups with Power 5 programs have definitely helped BYU’s cause in seeing an uptick in attendance. For the first handful of years as an FBS Independent, quality matchups against Power 5 programs in Provo were few and far between. Now they are becoming a regular occurrence as the Independent schedules start to even out.

Next year, BYU welcomes Michigan State from the Big Ten, Missouri out of the SEC, and rivals Utah State and San Diego State into LaVell Edwards Stadium.

Graphic courtesy of sports.ksl.com.

Mitch Harper is a BYU Insider for sports.ksl.com and host of the Cougar Tracks Podcast (SUBSCRIBE) and Cougar Sports Saturday (Saturday from 12-3 pm) on KSL Newsradio. Follow him on Twitter: @Mitch_Harper.