Stanford takes the field to a sparse home crowd on Saturday, Oct. 22 To help get more people to the games, Stanford football has introduced an interesting season ticket concept.
College FootballNCAABy Michael Dixon on

While Stanford’s football team spent much of the 2010s as a ranked team and even a national championship contender, the last few seasons have not gone as well. Since the start of the 2019 season, the Cardinal have gone 14-23. And to try to get some interest in the program back, Stanford has introduced an interesting concept.

The on-field woes have been reflected in Stanford’s attendance. The Cardinal’s upset win against Notre Dame in South Bend on October 15 did little to bring the fans out for Saturday’s home game against Arizona State one week later. When the team took the field for that game, the empty seats at Stanford Stadium outnumbered the people in the crowd — and not by a small amount.

Stanford is by no means the only Pac-12 team dealing with this issue. UCLA has dealt with sparse crowds at more than one home game. But there’s one critical difference.

While the Bruins have tarped off portions of the Rose Bowl, its actual capacity is over 90,000. With a stadium that big, a crowd of somewhere around 30,000 will look a lot lighter than it actually is. Since its redesign after the 2005 season, Stanford Stadium’s capacity is just over 50,000. So, if there are more empty seats than people, that means less than 25,000. And looking at the video above, it wasn’t even close to that.

With an eye toward getting more people out to The Farm, Stanford has introduced the Give and Get Program. What that essentially means is, fans can purchase season tickets for the 2023 season — which includes home dates against Notre Dame and the Cardinal’s biggest rival, Cal. If they do that, the tickets to 2022’s final two home games (against Washington State and BYU) will be on the house.

Some fans loved the idea.

Others, though, were more critical of the idea. Or, if not critical of the idea, at least wary of what it represents.

[Stanford Football, Stewart Mandel, Photo Credit: Brad Denny]

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