Since Saturday’s game against Wisconsin, there have been a lot of people discussing the announced attendance figure of 36,045 for that game. Ben Bolch wrote about it for the California Post. Of course, yesterday, Dimitri wrote about why it isn’t going to turn around as quickly as the team has.
But I’ve also seen posts and comments on social media from people saying that there were way more than 50K there.
So, in order to clear up any confusion, I want to explain things as clearly as possible for anyone still think their eyes tell them that the announced attendance is somehow lower than the number of people actually in attendance.
First, let’s talk about one of the most common practices in sports attendance. Many teams choose to announce “tickets distributed.” The problem with this, of course, is that if someone has a ticket and doesn’t use it for some reason, that person still gets counted in that attendance number. Inevitably, it inflates the attendance number because even unused tickets get counted into that announced attendance. Until this season, that had been the way UCLA football attendance had been reported.
For instance, the announced attendance for UCLA’s game against Penn State last season was 39,256. However, I obtained the number of tickets scanned at the gates for the same game via a public records request I made last season and that number was only 28,040.
So, after years of attendance numbers which were inflated by unused tickets, Bruin fans may be looking at the people in the stands and continuing to inflate that number in their heads based on historically inflated numbers.
The bottom line to the change is that only tickets scanned are being reported.
Some other teams choose to announce a “paid attendance” number. That would exclude any free or complimentary tickets which may have been used for a particular game. Again, UCLA is not doing that because they are announcing the number of tickets scanned at the Rose Bowl’s gates.
That means students are not being excluded from the announced attendance. While student tickets are now free, students do have to have a ticket to scan in order to get into the game. When a student ticket gets scanned, it gets counted into the announced attendance.
Finally, let’s discuss the Rose Bowl’s capacity because, let’s face it, capacity certainly plays into people eyeballing the seating fullness of the stadium. This may be one of the things which make estimating a crowd size difficult to eyeball because the Rose Bowl capacity has changed over time.
While the Rose Bowl seating capacity from 1972 to 1997 was 104,091, renovations since then have decreased the capacity For instance, the 2007 UCLA Football Media Guide listed the capacity as 91,136. However, the 2026 UCLA Football Media Guide lists the current capacity as 81,258, but that is the post-Field Club renovation capacity without tarps on the upper portions of both end zones.
Speaking of the Field Club, you need to remember that this most recent renovation knocked out a lot of seating. Estimates put that in somewhere between 5,000 and 8,000 seats were removed. As a result, the loss of those seating sections have forced fans who may not want to pay for premium tickets to sit in other locations like the East sideline behind the visitor’s bench, which, in turn, makes those areas appear fuller.
Then, there’s the tarps. An estimate from the Rose Bowl’s Wikipedia page for just the North tarps indicates that about 20K seats are covered by those tarps. Assuming that, it’s reasonable to assume a loss of 20K more for the South end zone tarps. Even if it is only 30K seats lost to both the north and south end zone, the available seating would need to be almost completely full to come anywhere close to the 50K some people seem to think were in attendance on Saturday.
While the Rose Bowl was certainly much fuller on Saturday than it’s been in past seasons, there were still lots of visibly empty seats, especially on the East sideline. In fact, if you look at the photo on this article or the third quarter photo from Bolch’s article, those empty seats are clearly visible. With Homecoming and Parents Weekend on deck for the next two home games, I would expect to see many of those seats filled for Michigan State and Nevada, especially the empty seats in the upper levels of the student sections
In closing, there’s just no reason to doubt the announced attendance for this year’s games. UCLA is announcing the number of tickets scanned, not distributed. So, while they aren’t inflating the number any longer, there just isn’t any reason at all to think that, for some unknown reason, they are now choosing to underreport the actual attendance.
The simple explanation as to why some people are now saying there were more people at Saturday’s Wisconsin game than there actually were has to do primarily with displacement of thousands of seats which were removed in favor of the Field Club seating in the South End Zone which has resulted in more fans sitting in sideline seats behind both team benches, combined with the tarps still being in place.
That said, the Bruins are officially THE best football team in Southern California, and any self-proclaimed UCLA fan living in SoCal really should come out to see this team play. The last time UCLA football was this much fun was probably 1998. It’s quickly turning into a very special season that you really don’t want to miss out.
Go Bruins!!!
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