Massaging "Attendance" Figures

[Szamo's_Ammo 6,380]

Attendance definition: the number of people present at a particular place or event.

Why do some clubs announce attendances that are higher than the number of people who actually attended a match? Is it to seem more appealing to sponsors? 

I know Celtic have been doing this for years but more clubs are doing the same, including Falkirk and Dunfermline in this division. Hearts, Hibs and Aberdeen do so in the Premiership.

Clubs should be made to announce the actual number of people who actually went to the match in my opinion.

What method do the other clubs in this division use when announcing their attendances?

[Nightmare 3,121]

I saw a Dunfermline fan earlier in the season say that they were doing it to appeal to potential sponsors. It seems that most of the teams who are now fabricating their attendances announce their number of tickets sold; that is, all the season tickets plus the actual walk-up ticket sales figures. Which, of course, ignores the hundreds (or tens of thousands for Celtic) of ST holders who don't turn up to any given match. I guess there's some logic to it, but it looks pretty stupid when you're declaring an obviously incorrect figure as your "attendance".

[sjc 5,171]

I think Clubs do the whole "tickets sold" attendance as it looks better from the Clubs point of view and also due to tax/accounting figures being based upon ticket sales.

 

[CITY1974 330]

I remember a few years back now a game at Ibrox being on the radio (midweek cup game ) against East Fife and the commentators waxing lyrical about the place being almost if not sold out ! they could nt believe the crowd in the place for the type of game it was ..
Halfway thru the 2nd half when attendance was announced it came thru as something like 31K .The commentators were furious at such a blatant attempt to rip off East Fife off half the gate money . They d actually knocked 20000 off the truer figure. ..

[Poet of the Macabre 6,571]

Aye, we've started doing it this season. Crowd figures should always be how many people are in the ground.

[Dunning1874 10,134]

Funnily enough, Dunfermline massively overstated the crowds for both league games but gave a realistic attendance for the cup game.

The most ridiculous one I've seen this season was Caley Thistle, who announced it as 2300 in our 2-0 win when it genuinely looked like less than half that.

[AyrshireTon 1,535]

Going the other way, when we met at Love Street in the semi final of the Challenge Cup, St Mirren announced the crowd at around 6000.

The ground was heaving, with an overspill of away fans in the North Bank once the Caley Stand was down to odd seats here and there. Much jeering from the away ends (bearing in mind the gate money would be shared) and they later announced a revised figure of nearer 7500.

[DA Baracus 16,480]

7 minutes ago, Dunning1874 said:

Funnily enough, Dunfermline massively overstated the crowds for both league games but gave a realistic attendance for the cup game.

The most ridiculous one I've seen this season was Caley Thistle, who announced it as 2300 in our 2-0 win when it genuinely looked like less than half that.

That's because season tickets aren't valid for cup games so therefore weren't counted.

Not a fan of the practice myself. Would prefer the announced attendance to be the actual attendance 

[Fifes Elite Force 127]

I am pretty sure we started doing it because other teams around us were, I suppose you might be giving competitors an unfair advantage when going out to look for sponsors if you didn't, also the higher up the average attendance the better it looks generally I suppose. It also might make it easier to count up the attendance for clubs if they know how many tickets they have sold+the total of season tickets if they don't have any sort of counter technology on their turnstiles. However in saying that at one of our recent midweek leagues games I am sure they gave an attendance that's was less that the amount of season tickets we have, no idea why?

 

It would be better if they just had one rule for totalling them up for everyone and they just gave the correct attendance but I'm not sure how this would be policed and its not that much of a big deal. 

[Rajamaki's Ponytail 26]

I think Morton tend to go the other way most of the time. Yet again Saturdays crowd seemed more than 2,300.

[Doakes 72]

Always think the crowds at St Mirren are much higher than the official figure, of course I can't prove it, but to say there's 4/5,000 when most seats are filled has always confused me. We've averaged over 1,000 at each away game - boosted by Morton away and taking 1,700+ to Livi tbf - but seems a huge percentage if our home crowd average is around 4k

[RiG 4,998]

47 minutes ago, Dunning1874 said:

The most ridiculous one I've seen this season was Caley Thistle, who announced it as 2300 in our 2-0 win when it genuinely looked like less than half that.

We're definitely doing it this season for some reason. I don't think we ever did before so I'm not sure what the point is in starting it now.

The game against St Mirren apparently attracted a crowd of 3,200 or so. Given that the Buddies took about 700 - 800 that would mean there was 2,400 home fans. Judging by this video from the game I think there's only about half of that there.

 

[Szamo's_Ammo 6,380]

16 minutes ago, Fifes Elite Force said:

It would be better if they just had one rule for totalling them up for everyone and they just gave the correct attendance but I'm not sure how this would be policed and its not that much of a big deal. 

I agree. There should be one rule for all clubs: reporting an attendance figure of people, funnily enough, in attendance.

Including non attending season ticket holders/ freebies who don't actually attend/ fans' ashes scattered on the pitch is a nonsense. Or don't call it an attendance when it is not.

Edited April 3, 2018 by Szamo's_Ammo

[Shandön Par 18,551]

Our “bring a dead homie day” should result in a bumper crowd v Brechin in a couple of weeks.

[flyingscot 768]

5 minutes ago, Doakes said:

Always think the crowds at St Mirren are much higher than the official figure, of course I can't prove it, but to say there's 4/5,000 when most seats are filled has always confused me. We've averaged over 1,000 at each away game - boosted by Morton away and taking 1,700+ to Livi tbf - but seems a huge percentage if our home crowd average is around 4k

It's often been said we understate it, but I don't think we do- I just think its difficult to spot the empty seats as a lot of them are coloured black so blend in a bit more.  The west stand often feels busy in W3/4 but then you go to W5 and W6 and probably less than half these sections are used.

[Mr.Blue 151]

16 minutes ago, Rajamaki's Ponytail said:

I think Morton tend to go the other way most of the time. Yet again Saturdays crowd seemed more than 2,300.

I thought that as well. Doubt they'd taken all of the players and coaches from the community teams into account as they didn't go through the turnstiles. Must have been at least 100 of them.

[TheScarf 8,829]

I think Ross County were the originals at this. They were doing it 15 years ago in the old First Division.  Which borne the phrase ‘3200 at the game from a town of 6000’ which was horseshit as there’s as many fans go to games from Inverness/Alness/Tain as there is from Dingwall itself, and there was really only about 2000 at these games. 

They still do it to this day, announcing 3500 against Hamilton when the jailend may as  well have been shut it was so sparsely populated. Same for the stand across from the main stand. 

Like mentioned on an above post, it’s a propaganda tool used by clubs to attract sponsorship and better press coverage.

 

[JinkyBairn 1,555]

Bitter topic this.

[Granny Danger 16,393]

I don’t mind the crowd numbers, it’s when the club tries to say we have 11 football players on the park when we obviously don’t...

[Rugster 13,235]

17 minutes ago, TheScarf said:

I think Ross County were the originals at this. They were doing it 15 years ago in the old First Division.  Which borne the phrase ‘3200 at the game from a town of 6000’ which was horseshit as there’s as many fans go to games from Inverness/Alness/Tain as there is from Dingwall itself, and there was really only about 2000 at these games. 

They still do it to this day, announcing 3500 against Hamilton when the jailend may as  well have been shut it was so sparsely populated. Same for the stand across from the main stand. 

Like mentioned on an above post, it’s a propaganda tool used by clubs to attract sponsorship and better press coverage.

 

I'm sure it was in reference to County when I first heard the phrase "They count the eyes" regarding attendance.