Arkansas Business

This story is from the archives of ArkansasSports360.com.

It takes effort to keep a football program nationally relevant.

Bobby Petrino is doing his part at Arkansas by coaching and recruiting a team that made a BCS game last year. He thinks he’s got the talent to do it again in 2011.

Arkansas officials did their part in landing a spot on ESPN for Saturday’s spring game. Essentially, they got a two or three hour infomercial for the program broadcast to college football fans, not to mention a number of features throughout the week on ESPN releated to Arkansas that — whether intentional or not — kept the spotlight on the Razorbacks.

Judging from the school’s announced attendance records, fans did their part on Saturday. Arkansas had a Red-White game record 42,000 in Reynolds Razorback Stadium to watch the final spring practice.

That number ranks seventh nationally. It’s fifth in the SEC behind Alabama, Auburn, Florida and Georgia.

Below are the Top 10 attended spring games for 2011 courtesy CNBC.

Keep in mind that not all schools keep spring attendance figures. Also, realize that at Arkansas and other places not tickets are taken.

But all in all, not bad company for the Razorbacks. These are the schools that Arkansas wants to compete with for national attention and what fans did Saturday helped put them in that category.

Now it just has to continue.