Attendance for the seven games run by the College Football Playoff dropped to an all-time low this postseason, halfway through the CFP's initial contract that created the New Year's Six games and the CFP National Championship. The attendance at those seven games were down a cumulative 42,500 fans or 8 percent from a playoff-era high in 2015.
That's an average decline of 6,069 fans per game across the Rose Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, Orange Bowl, Peach Bowl, Sugar Bowl and CFP National Championship. A sellout crowd of 76,885 Monday watched LSU defeat Clemson at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in the title game. That brought the CFP attendance total to 492,220, down 3 percent from the previous season.
For the fourth consecutive year, four of the seven CFP games decreased in attendance from the previous season.
"It's exactly what Nick Saban has been saying," said Wright Waters, outgoing Football Bowl Association executive director. "We've created a group of schools that their goal is to be in the playoff."
The biggest declines this season came in the Cotton Bowl and Sugar Bowl, each of which featured a non-traditional team and was not a semifinal game.