Last weekend the Tennessee Volunteers played against the Ohio Bobcats in Knoxville, TN. Neyland Stadium holds somewhere in the neighborhood of 107,000 people. The official attendance during the Ohio game was about 96,000. On TV it looked a lot emptier than that.

This brings up an interesting question, where were the fans?

Did they stay away because Tennessee was 1-2 entering the game and playing a MAC team? Did the possibility of severe weather keep people away? Was it sheer economics?

It was probably a combination of things but I have to believe that the economics played a big part.

Look at some other notable events recently. Washington St. canceled the second part of their home and home against Hawaii. They had to pay a $300,000 buyout but that was probably pennies compared to the travel costs of taking a PAC 10 school to the islands. Attendance is down at a lot of NFL games as well. The Jacksonville Jaguars are blacked out all season long because they can't sell out their stadium.

I read stories all summer long as to the impact this economy is having on college athletics. Coaches driving to see recruits as opposed to flying. Schools canceling games with opponents like the Washington St. example above.

Some schools already were already cutting back on recruiting because of budget constraints and I'm pretty sure that we'll see kids commit to the Wyoming's, Boise St's, and UNLV's of the world without ever traveling to see the campus. I think these instances will be rare but between text messages, IM and streaming video coaches can recruit kids from far away without ever visiting them.

In the end the current economic environment has had a bigger impact than people think.  In the past during hard economic times people cut back but they still found a way to go to the game or to the show. Those times many be long when you look at the increased ticket prices  vs. household income.

So Tennessee not selling out the 107,000 seats could be blamed on a lot of things but let's look at it the other way, there was 96,000 people there. That's more than most NFL stadiums hold.