Ganesan | The evolution of Stanford football: What happened to all the fans?
It was a fall Saturday when I ran excitedly to the Oct. 26 Wake Forest vs. Stanford game — a game we maybe had a chance to win. There is nothing quite like the rush of roaring fans on game day — but to my surprise, every other seat was empty. Students in attendance sat largely bored, and alumni remained complacent at their respective boozy tailgates. Even at the Big Game, in fact, which is arguably Stanford’s biggest sports event of the year, I felt a palpable lack of Game Day excitement from the Stanford community.
It wasn’t always like this. I remember growing up in the Bay Area, hearing about games with the famed Christian McCaffrey. He is renowned for being one of the best college running backs, according to the NCAA.
“The stadiums were packed,” recounted Bay Area native Cole Robins ‘25.
Ananya Sridhar ‘25 recounted going to the Rose Bowl in 2015: “The first play from scrimmage Kevin Hogan threw Christian a perfect pass to the middle and he took it all the way to the house, the band went crazy, and that moment made me want to come to Stanford.”
And while his legacy lives on, why do the beautiful stands of the Stanford Stadium ring empty? Does the stadium now sit solely as an emblem of a great past while other athletics around us seem to be rising? This question seems even more timely with Stanford’s transition into the ACC, a new league with the cross coastal likes of Boston College and Wake Forest. Students, faculty and alumni alike are starting to question: is Stanford still truly a sports school?
To that, I ask our readers — what comes first: a good football team or good fans? And how have recent changes affected the culture we once had at Stanford?
Issac Sullivan ’27, who manages sports for The Stanford Daily, wrote a great article describing how the evolution of our football team and its fanbase is vitally important. But I don’t think a struggling football team is the only thing that’s keeping students at Green Library instead of the stadium on a Saturday.
Let’s look at the evidence: even for our teams that have high wins–including women’s basketball and men’s soccer, students don’t show up and show out.
I talked to some students to get a better sense of why this may happen. Reasons spanned from “the football stadium is just too far from central campus,” according to Avery Watkins ‘25, president of the Inter-Sorority Council, to “we’re just not very good,” according to Eva Lacy ‘27. The prevailing theory seems to be that if our football team won more, more students would go to games. And even amidst nostalgia for the past some students wonder if the stands were ever truly that crowded. Former football player Danny McFadden ‘25 noted, “I’m not even sure the stands were that filled in the McCaffrey days.”
After talking to students, here are some other central theories that rang through:
Theory #1: The Stress Effect
Students don’t attend football games because they are simply too busy.
At a baseline, student anxiety and stress is at an all time high in a post-Covid era, with mental health a priority advocacy point for students. Duck syndrome is real, and students feel an often hidden pressure to succeed academically.
In a world of problem sets and upcoming SWE interviews, it can feel like a rough tradeoff to spend 4 hours of your day watching a football game.
Theory #2: The Separation Effect
Students don’t attend football games because they no longer feel connected to a larger Stanford identity or athletes in general.
The athlete and NARP divide comes at no surprise to the average Stanford student. As students-athletes and non-athletes eat in different dining halls and are caught on different schedules because of practices, maybe they simply don’t interact with each other as much.
I asked 10 athlete friends and non-athlete friends how many of their friends come from the other category. Non-athletes estimated that athletes made up 5-10% of their friend circles. Athletes cited the same numbers.
Theory #3: The Network Effect
Students don’t attend football games… because students don’t attend football games.
“My friends just don’t go to games” said Isabelle Cai ’25. “You don’t think you’ve missed out on anything. There’s no FOMO,” claimed Kappa Sig member Daniel Longo ’25.
Not to be Stanford cheesy, but the reasoning for this may actually have a computer science foundation. In his course CS 278, Professor Michael Bernstein explains the concept of “network effects” and “thresholds” in regards to social media. For social media app designers, the network of an app — in other words, who is on it and who convinces their friends to get on it — is often the entire value proposition.
To apply this term, could football culture at Stanford have a network effect challenge currently? Because no one thinks their friends are going, they aren’t going either. The football stadium is not a place to SABS (see and be seen).
To be honest, I’m not sure which of these theories, if any, is true. But to return to our original question: what comes first the chicken (a winning football team) or the egg (a dedicated fan base)? I choose a different answer: the farm. More specifically, defining what type of farm Stanford wants to be. Will we continue to be a school that builds not only students at the highest academic and athletic standards but also a community that supports it? Or will the pursuit of both prevent us from building community in the first place?
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