UA website says the soccer team is 15th in the nation in average attendance (1,346) and 14th in total attendance (8,077) so far this season. Another home match Friday night vs. Georgia, by the way.
Thanks. I am thinking about driving up for my first Razorback soccer game on October 20 for the Missouri game. BTW, the October 6 Vanderbilt game is on SEC Network.
And by way of comparison, average home crowd for our women’s hoops team last year was 2,373, which was not in the top 50 nationally. Gymnastics average crowd was 2,384, which ranked 11th in the country. Volleyball averaged 980 last year and is averaging 711 this year. Latest numbers I can find for UA softball attendance was 549 in 2015, which was 36th in the country.
So in terms of how it compares to the rest of their sport, our best women’s crowds are for gymnastics and soccer.
Arkansas’ soccer stadium only holds about 1,200 people, so that average attendance is outstanding. I think you’ll see some seats added if they can keep up that kind of attendance for a couple of seasons. With the influx in international students at the university, my guess is that will happen, especially if the team continues to have success.
Jeff Long said to me the other day that the soccer stadium is one of the facilities on his radar after the football stadium expansion.
Another note: Colby Hale said the largest attendance for a soccer game prior to 2013 was about 600. They’ve eclipsed that six times since then.
I think JL should take a serious look at Swine’s suggestion of using the Track facility. I don’t think there would be any overlapping scheduling issues with Track and Soccer. By the way, does the outdoor Track facility have lights?
The track does have lights, but I don’t think that would happen. Arkansas spent quite a bit of money renovating and adding on to the soccer clubhouse a few years back, and I think added a new scoreboard.
Track and soccer seasons don’t overlap, but their practices do. There are outdoor athletes who work year-round on the track. I think soccer also plays some spring exhibition games when the outdoor season is happening.
Well, as I mentioned in those posts, both Texas and Florida play soccer in their track stadiums. Florida has been our main challenger for track supremacy in the SEC (and has won some NCAA team titles), so I’d say any practice conflicts have not been a major issue. Soccer could still practice and be mainly based at Razorback Field, just play matches at JMF. Those spring exhibitions could also be at Razorback Field if there is a conflict.
The Florida stadium seats 4,500; the Texas facility, where they hold the Texas Relays now that the track has been removed from DKR, seats 20,000+. JMF seats 7,000.