College Football v NFL.

[ChefChiTown]

So, the first games were played by colleges and the rules were written by a college coach and the first professional player was "paid" in 1892. Hmm. It sounds like we actually do need the firm dates of 1922 and whichever date we want to assign to the NCAA. But, of course, the NFL was a pimple on the butt of college football before the merger in terms of popularity and attendance.

College football is always going to be more popular and it's always going to have a bigger attendance. The only reason that is true is because colleges get a whole new batch of students (fans) every year. That's millions upon millions of new fans each and every year. You can go to just about any college here in the United States that has a football program and see how huuuuuge the student data base is. It's absolutely unreal.

Plus, college teams usually have extremely huge stadiums that have a much larger seating capacity than NFL stadiums. It's like that because of the large amount of students. NFL teams can't do that because they don't have millions of students that live right on campus (which is just a few blocks away from the stadium) that can easily access and, in essence, fill the stadium every single week. Also, college students (for the most part) get big discounts on the pricing of their tickets, which makes it easier for more people to be able to afford to attend the games.

No matter how good or popular an NFL team is, it will never have a chance to attract a higher attendance than, let's say, the Texas Longhorns.

 

[maildude]

The Lions suck. Bring on the Roughriders!!!

 

[titsrock]

College football is always going to be more popular and it's always going to have a bigger attendance. The only reason that is true is because colleges get a whole new batch of students (fans) every year. That's millions upon millions of new fans each and every year. You can go to just about any college here in the United States that has a football program and see how huuuuuge the student data base is. It's absolutely unreal.

Plus, college teams usually have extremely huge stadiums that have a much larger seating capacity than NFL stadiums. It's like that because of the large amount of students. NFL teams can't do that because they don't have millions of students that live right on campus (which is just a few blocks away from the stadium) that can easily access and, in essence, fill the stadium every single week. Also, college students (for the most part) get big discounts on the pricing of their tickets, which makes it easier for more people to be able to afford to attend the games.

No matter how good or popular an NFL team is, it will never have a chance to attract a higher attendance than, let's say, the Texas Longhorns.

Not all college stadiums are as big as The Big House or Longhorn Stadium. The average college stadium might be 30,000 attendance or it might even be lower than that. I suspect the average NFL stadium seats 60,000. All NFL franchises are located in population centers, not in rural communities. You seem to be using *fuzzy math* Chef by converting thousands and thousands of college students into millions and millions of college fans. Most college fans count themselves as pro fans because they want to see their fellow students or alumni athletes perform in the pros.

Do we agree that the prime goal of college football is not to make money, and the prime goal of professional football is to make money?

Aren't we supposed to be discussing which style of play and which nuances of the game are better? We seem to be going off into many different areas. :dunno: The marketing of each level of play makes direct comparison nearly impossible, imo.

 

[Neutron66]

Do we agree that the prime goal of college football is not to make money

Are you kidding? Why do you think they have football in college? It's not exactly a degree program.

It generates money for the college. Millions of dollars of it. That's why they have it.

The players don't make money (not directly, at least) but the colleges themselves make tons of it.

 

[titsrock]

The purpose of college football (and all college sports) is to provide a competitive outlet for "the student body" and to grow the mind by combining athletics and academics. And, it's also to extend the college experience to alums and fans. Making money is a secondary objective. How else do we explain the gap between the 'best' colleges not having the 'best' football programs?

Making money is the only objective of pro football.

 

[STDiva]

Do we agree that the prime goal of college football is not to make money?

Their goal is to not make money? Well they aren't doing a very good job.

 

[ChefChiTown]

Not all college stadiums are as big as The Big House or Longhorn Stadium. The average college stadium might be 30,000 attendance or it might even be lower than that. I suspect the average NFL stadium seats 60,000. All NFL franchises are located in population centers, not in rural communities. You seem to be using *fuzzy math* Chef by converting thousands and thousands of college students into millions and millions of college fans. Most college fans count themselves as pro fans because they want to see their fellow students or alumni athletes perform in the pros.

Fuzzy math? Let's look at the facts here...

There are 32 NFL teams. There are 31 stadiums that are used by the NFL on a regular basis (currently, the New York Giants and the New York Jets both share Giants Stadium). When you add together the total seating capacity for every single NFL stadium, the sum comes out to be 2,182,421 available seats. If you add in the fact that some NFL stadiums can expand and offer more seats, then that total changes to 2,227,934 available seats.

Now, since "college football" is a vary vague term, let's just look at the seating capacity for a select few NCAA stadiums...

Memorial Stadium (Illinois) - 62,872
Memorial Stadium (Indiana) - 52,692
Kinnick Stadium (Iowa) - 70,585
Michigan Stadium (Michigan) - 107,501
Spartan Stadium (Michigan State) - 75,005
TCF Bank Stadium (Minnesota) - 50,805
Ryan Field (Northwestern) - 47,130
Ohio Stadium (Ohio State) - 102,329
Beaver Stadium (Penn State) - 107,282
Ross-Ade Stadium (Purdue) - 62,500
Camp Randall Stadium (Wisconsin) - 80,321

Add those up and you get 819,022 available seats. And, that's just from the Big 10 alone!!! You still have to consider the schools and stadiums from PAC-10, Big East, SEC, WAC, Big 12, ACC, etc. Where am I getting these figures from? Wikipedia (which I admit is not the most credible source), but it has a lot of information in one place and I didn't feel like going to dozens and dozens of different pages just to get this information. I also found this, which is quite interesting...

Highest Attendance By Sport (2008):

NFL football
Total attendance - 17,469,552 people
Average attendance - 68,240 people

NCAA football
Total attendance (Division 1 FBS) - 37,483,158 people
Total attendance (Division 1 FCS) - 5,972,993 people
Average attendance (Division 1 FBS) - 46,971 people
Average attendance (Division 1 FCS) - 8,823 people

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sports_attendance_figures

NCAA football, in the year 2008, had an attendance of 43,456,151 people. That's nearly two and a half times the amount that the NFL had, even though the NFL averaged a larger crowd for every game. Why? Because, there are sooooo many schools, sooooo many stadiums at those schools and sooooo many students to fill those stadiums. So, the NFL will never outsell college football and it will never be more popular (in the sense of attendance) than college football. It has no chance.

Do we agree that the prime goal of college football is not to make money, and the prime goal of professional football is to make money?

The NFL is a business. A school is a business. Soooo, no. We don't agree, because they are both business and they both have the objective to make as much money as they possibly can.

Aren't we supposed to be discussing which style of play and which nuances of the game are better? We seem to be going off into many different areas. :dunno: The marketing of each level of play makes direct comparison nearly impossible, imo.

...we don't have anything better to? :dunno:

 

[HeartBroker]

None ... Soccer is the real football.

Then what the fuck are you doing in this thread? Pick up the damm ball!



I said Pro even though they are both awesome.
Pro because everyone on the field is the top 1% of all college players, the level of skill is sooooo much higher in the NFL

 

[MILF Man]

College is so much better with so much more passion.

 

[D-rock]

The purpose of college football (and all college sports) is to provide a competitive outlet for "the student body" and to grow the mind by combining athletics and academics. And, it's also to extend the college experience to alums and fans. Making money is a secondary objective. How else do we explain the gap between the 'best' colleges not having the 'best' football programs?

Making money is the only objective of pro football.

Oh, come on titsrock. I know your smart enough and not naive enough to know how absolutely false your statement is. You just have to actually admit it to yourself.

Even if it was really the original purpose, that original purpose got corrupted decades ago, long before most of us here were even born. This isn't like a bunch of amateur college kids picking up a game to have a little fun in there spare time anymore.