A chart from a University of Arkansas PowerPoint presentation about attendance at UA football games in Little Rock and Fayetteville.
Fans from northwest Arkansas make up a bigger portion of ticket sales for Razorbacks football games held in Little Rock than fans from the southeast and southwest areas of the state combined, according to a presentation prepared by the University of Arkansas.
The PowerPoint presentation, which also predicts that War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock would need up to $10 million in renovations to be Southeastern Conference caliber, was released to Arkansas Business on Tuesday in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. A contract to play one game per year at War Memorial expires in 2018.
“WMS Stadium proximity to Eastern and Southern Arkansas” is among the “benefits of WMS presence” enumerated in the presentation, along with “History and Tradition” and “Affirmation of UA commitment to serving the entire state.”
But an analysis of attendance at games held at the larger Reynolds Razorback Stadium on the UA campus in Fayetteville and games held in Little Rock suggests that fans from southeast Arkansas are more likely to travel to Fayetteville than to Little Rock, while Little Rock is still a bigger draw for fans from southwest Arkansas.
The southern sections of the state produce an average of 5,145 fans for Little Rock games — 11 percent of the average total of 46,774 — and an average of 4,037 fans for Fayetteville (5.8 percent of the average attendance of 69,606).
Notably, almost one in five fans at games held in Little Rock travel from northwest Arkansas. Central Arkansas fans are significantly more likely to attend a Little Rock game, averaging 21,048 at War Memorial and 15,731 at Fayetteville games.
Sign up for Daily E-news
