The below is from Woochifer who posts on Bruin Gold. He pulled the attendance #s from the sc games at the Rose Bowl to get a better apple-apples comparison on average attendance. He makes some good points:
--UCLA's attendance for the 20 years that LA did not have a NFL team was 14k HIGHER than for the other years when LA did have pro football.
--The season ticket base is now below 10k after peaking at around 35k during Mora's tenure. THAT is your attendance problem, not the students.
"Here's the average attendance for every year since UCLA moved to the RB (minus the Southern Cal games for year-over-year comparability). For 7 out of 10 years during the 90s, the average attendance was below 50k.
Even in UCLA's best years under Donahue, the average attendance only peaked at 57k in 1988 when Aikman was a Heisman candidate and the team was ranked #1. UCLA's attendance didn't start to go over 60k and hit 70k until the NFL left town. Now that the NFL is back, there's more competition for entertainment dollars. As I've posted before, UCLA's attendance for the 20 years that LA did not have a NFL team was 14k HIGHER than for the other years when LA did have pro football.
The season ticket base is now below 10k after peaking at around 35k during Mora's tenure. THAT is your attendance problem, not the students. Build the season ticket base back up, and the attendance will go back to the historic norms around the 50k range. Because of the NFL, I doubt it will go back to the 70k range from the Mora years, unless UCLA is consistently in the championship hunt."
1982 51,304
1983 54,009
1984 47,325
1985 52,938
1986 53,200
1987 55,689
1988 57,018
1989 54,120
1990 45,906
1991 49,152
1992 42,999
1993 50,246
1994 43,292
1995 49,099
1996 49,504
1997 54,589
1998 70,117
1999 49,825
2000 69,026
2001 66,613
2002 60,258
2003 56,636
2004 54,930
2005 64,218
2006 60,677
2007 76,379
2008 70,296
2009 64,547
2010 58,230
2011 56,645
2012 65,573
2013 70,285
2014 76,703
2015 66,858
2016 66,723
2017 56,044
2018 50,172
2019 43,849
2021 45,818
2022 37,399
2023 47,951
2024 44,272
2025 37,282