Pitt football home attendance is a source of mockery for opposing fans, but recent evidence shows the increase in fans coming to games in recent years.
The team has had the third highest increase in fans at home amongst all Power 5 schools over the last two seasons, 2022 and 2023 compared to 2016-18, according to More than 10 thousand fans came to watch games over the past two seasons than those three seasons, the highest of any ACC team.
Much of the increase over the past two seasons is thanks to the Backyard Brawl in the season opener in 2022, which set the record for most fans at a Pittsburgh sporting event with a recorded attendance of 70,622. The game beat the previous record of 69,983 fans, which occurred at the Pitt-Penn State game in 2016. That game pitted the two in-state rivals against each other for the first time since 2000, leading to that record setting crowd.
Other factors include winning the ACC Championship in 2021 and that leading to renewed interest in Pitt football. Big games against Tennessee in 2022 and rival Cincinnati last season at home also helped the attendance numbers as well.
The only schools with higher increases in attendance are Kansas and Purdue. Head coach Lance Leipold has finished the past two seasons with a 15-11 record, including nine wins last season and a ranking of No. 23 in the final poll. This is the first time Kansas finished ranked since they went 12-1 in 2007.
Jeff Brohm revitalized the Purdue program, with back-to-back seasons in 2021 and 2022 with winning records, the first time since 2006 and 2007. Purdue also finished first in the Big Ten West Division and they made the Big Ten Championship Game for the first time since 2000. He left for Louisville following the 2022 season.
The only other ACC team to see major increases in attendance was Syracuse. Other schools that had better attendance include Big Ten schools like Rutgers, Illinois and Minnesota, Big 12 schools in Cincinnati, BYU and Texas, SEC schools in Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee and Arkansas, as well as Utah.
ACC teams with drops in attendance include Miami and Georgia Tech, who saw the third and fifth biggest drops in attendance for Power 5 schools, respectively.
Rival West Virginia saw the sixth biggest decline in attendance, of 7.8 thousand fans. UCLA led the way with a loss of 13.5 thousand fans and Northwestern came in second at a decline of 12.2 thousand fans.
Haha, WVU fans would rather come to Pittsburgh to watch their team than Morgantown.