re: This ain't your grandpappy's CFB no more

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the younger generation doesn't really seem to care all that much about college football. Once the boomers are all gone, it's in big trouble.

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This is true. The "game day experience" is not up to that of pro sports for one thing....most college stadiums are nice enough but they ain't significantly different except in size than a decent high school stadium. Younger folks also do not seem to be into tailgating and making an entire fall Saturday about spending time on campus with a football game being the reason to go to campus at all. Its also extremely expensive and young families are stretched already living in McMansions and driving 2 new vehicles and having kids involved in multiple activities that cost a fortune. They will still watch on TV but that experience has also become almost unbearable with the number of LONG commercial breaks that take away any ebb and flow to the game. It is really becoming a bad product all the way around. I know the numbers do not support this, ticket prices are crazy expensive and TV viewership is higher than its ever been but I would bet that a gracious plenty of the latter is simply background noise and only about 25% of the TV audience can say at any point in time what the down and distance is between plays.

My son and I went to the Sugar Bowl last year and had a big time. We spent about $5k to do so. We did arrive on the 30th and stayed through the 3rd because the game was postponed but we would have only stayed one day less had that not happened so we would have spent $4000? on attending that game. That is a pile of money for just about anyone to spend on a football game. He and I are going to the Cocktail Party this year and we will drive down the day of the game and drive home after wards and it will still cost us about $1k. It is just too expensive. I have had 4 tickets since 1992 and 4 SEC CG tickets since the first year it was in Atlanta. Not counting ticket prices it will cost us $300 to attend a home game and probably $500 to attend the SEC CG and neither stadium is more than 3 hours from the house. Its not only expensive but it is also an entire Saturday at the best time of the year to be doing other shite. Combined with the portal and the commercials. which make the in game experience even less tolerable than watching at home, the product is simply not worth the effort and expense. About March or so last year I made my mind up that I was not going to spend as much time on UGA football as I have the last 52 years. I did not watch the game this week....I listened to it on the radio like I did for the first 20 or so of those 52 years...and it was pretty damned enjoyable to be doing shite that needed to be done instead of staring at a damned endless stream of Dr. Pepper commercials interupted every 5 minutes for 3 minutes of football. Other than the score I really did not know what was going on....and I managed to survive.