As a Cal student in the mid-1980s I was accustomed to seeing a half-full stadium on game days. That wasn't much of a surprise as the Golden Bears won a total of eight games during my three years on campus. Cal's Memorial Stadium capacity during those years was around 75,000. Games against Stanford, USC and UCLA in those days might approach 3/4 of that capacity. Attendance improved greatly when Cal experienced some winning ways with the guidance of Jeff Tedford in the early 2000s. Nearly every home game was close to capacity. A full football stadium is an unusual site in Berkeley. After recent renovations the current capacity of Memorial Stadium is 62,647. The capacity of Stanford Stadium is less than that at around 50,000. The level of college football interest in the San Francisco Bay Area fluctuates wildly. Especially in comparison to the rest of the nation. With this as my college football background it has always amazed me to see the tremendous college football enthusiasm in other parts of the country. I attended a Penn St.-Michigan game in Ann Arbor in the mid-1990s. It was incredible. The announced attendance was something like 105,000. I was a little shocked to notice that the posted capacity of Michigan Stadium was 102,501. How is that even possible? Or legal? It was a new and impressive experience. It was more than five times the attendance of a particularly depressing Cal-Washington St. game that I attended in 1984. Schools like Michigan, Ohio St., and Nebraska draw more for their annual Spring Game than Cal draws for rivalry games against Stanford, USC, and UCLA. College football is a blast. Cal football is a blast. It's even a blast when Cal isn't winning much which is unfortunately more often than not. It's just so fun to be a part of the college football environment. The more people that are involved in that environment the better. The more the merrier. It's no surprise that the SEC and Big Ten were more merry than other conferences.
CBSSports.com's Jon Solomon broke down college football attendance:
| 2014 DIVISION I FBS HOME ATTENDANCE LEADERS (TEAMS) |
| TEAM | AVG. ATTENDANCE | STADIUM CAPACITY | FILL % |
| Ohio State | 106,296 | 104,944 | 1.012 |
| Texas A&M | 105,123 | 102,500 | 1.026 |
| Michigan | 104,909 | 109,901 | 0.955 |
| LSU | 101,723 | 102,321 | 0.994 |
| Penn State | 101,623 | 107,282 | 0.947 |
| Alabama | 101,534 | 101,821 | 0.997 |
| Tennessee | 99,754 | 102,455 | 0.974 |
| Texas | 94,103 | 100,119 | 0.940 |
| Georgia | 92,746 | 92,746 | 1.000 |
| Nebraska | 91,249 | 87,000 | 1.049 |
| Auburn | 87,451 | 87,451 | 1.000 |
| Florida | 85,834 | 88,548 | 0.969 |
| Oklahoma | 85,162 | 82,112 | 1.037 |
| Florida State | 82,211 | 82,300 | 0.999 |
| Clemson | 81,752 | 81,500 | 1.003 |
South Carolina, Notre Dame, Wisconsin, UCLA, Michigan State, USC, Iowa, Arkansas, Missouri, Washington, Ole Miss, Virginia Tech, Mississippi State, Texas Tech and Kentucky filled out the top 30.
Top 30 broken down by conference:
SEC: 13
Big Ten: 7
Big 12: 3
Pac-12: 3
ACC: 3
Independents: 1
| 2014 DIVISION I FBS CONFERENCE ATTENDANCE LEADERS |
| CONFERENCE | TOTAL ATTENDANCE | AVG. ATTENDANCE | CHANGE IN AVG. (YOY) |
| SEC | 7,769,362 | 77,694 | +2,020 |
| Big Ten* | 6,419,447 | 66,869 | -3,562 |
| Big 12 | 3,776,610 | 58,102 | -797 |
| Pac-12 | 4,110,783 | 52,702 | -917 |
| ACC* | 4,727,318 | 50,291 | +309 |
| American* | 2,014,334 | 29,193 | -4,519 |
| Mountain West | 1,868,733 | 25,254 | -826 |
| Conference USA* | 1,472,759 | 20,455 | -1,055 |
| Sun Belt* | 951,296 | 18,294 | -1,565 |
| Mid-American | 1,172,750 | 15,431 | -1,308 |
| Independents* | 1,269,175 | 52,882 | +12,120 |
*Different alignment than prior year
All figures via NCAA.org
Having a stadium with a capacity greater than 80,000 helps boost attendance and the SEC and Big Ten have a bunch of those. More important than having a big stadium is the ability to fill it. The schools in those conferences do that better than the rest.
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