You would be very wrong. Average stadium capacity was around 89% in the 90's to mid 2000's. In this case let's just take the Gator bowl as an example starting in 2004.

2004 #23 Maryland vs #20 West Virginia. 79k
2005 #17 FSU vs unranked West Virginia. 70k
2006 #12 VT vs Louisville 64k
2007 #13 West Virginia vs unranked GT 68k
2008 Texas Tech vs Virginia 60k
2009 Nebraska vs Clemson 67k
2010 FSU vs #18 West Virginia 84k (record for Gator Bowl)

Playoffs begin after 2014
2015 56k for Iowa vs Tennessee
2016 43k
2017 41k
2018 38k
2019 45k
2020 57k
2021 25k
2022 67k but that was with Notre Dame
2023 40k
2024 31k

It just used to mean more. The biggest problem was probably adding way too many bowl games but I had to address the ones in the other thread saying bowl games never had good attendance.

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Posted by Tiger Prawn

Member since Dec 2016

25200 posts

Posted on 12/27/25 at 3:54 pm to holdmuh keystonelite

To be fair, in the playoff era there were a lot more Gator Bowls featuring 2 unranked teams and some shitty programs that nobody cares about…like Kentucky, Wake Forest, Rutgers, and Duke.

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Posted by Tifway419

Member since Sep 2022

1802 posts

Posted on 12/27/25 at 4:07 pm to holdmuh keystonelite

What if you raise the bar to 8 or 9 wins from 6? You’d have your 12 (or 16) team playoff, Group of 5 playoff, then could have about 8 bowl games with the teams who finished with 8 or 9+ wins and didn’t make the playoff.

Thats about 30-32 P4 schools with bowls/playoff games. Then 8 G5 teams in their playoff.

Bowl games would be meaningful as those team would have had good seasons. Then of course the playoffs would be meaningful.

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Posted by holdmuh keystonelite

Member since Oct 2020

3738 posts

Posted on 12/27/25 at 6:00 pm to Tifway419

I like that idea.

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Posted by 1801

Charleston

Member since Aug 2012

8394 posts

Posted on 12/27/25 at 7:26 pm to holdmuh keystonelite

quote:
2022 67k but that was with Notre Dame

Notre Dame had about 12K fans in Jax at the game - that was a Carolina home game with 50-55K Gamecocks - the entire Lowcountry day-tripped 3 hours to Duval that morning

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Posted by Flat Town Tiger

Washington, La.

Member since Oct 2006

572 posts

Posted on 12/27/25 at 7:33 pm to 1801

That BYU vs. Georgia Tech game was fun to watch. They both wanted it bad and it was back and forth. Pride for the players and the program still means something.

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Posted by holdmuh keystonelite

Member since Oct 2020

3738 posts

Posted on 12/27/25 at 7:50 pm to Tiger Prawn

Just seen this..

For the recent Gator Bowl featuring Virginia vs. Missouri on December 27, 2025, the attendance was reported as 31,290, a notably low figure, making it the smallest non-COVID era crowd for the bowl game, with some fans potentially opting out after earlier bowl travel.

This post was edited on 12/27/25 at 7:53 pm

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Posted by CSinLC