Two college bowl games were played on Friday. They drew a combined audience of 24,083.
The Fenway Bowl, played on Saturday morning, had an attendance of about 15,000.
Those pale in comparison to the crowds that attended Friday and Saturday for the UIL State Championship games at AT&T Stadium.
The South Oak Cliff vs. Port Neches-Groves Class 5A Division II title game, played at AT&T Stadium on Friday night, drew 32,098 players. Aledo’s 52-14 win over College Station in the 5A Division I finals drew a crowd of 28,160, and Saturday afternoon’s 6A Division II title game between DeSoto and Austin Vandegrift attracted a crowd of 34,891.
Since the UIL State Championship Games returned to AT&T Stadium in 2016, there have been seven State Finals with more than 40,000 spectators. That didn’t include Saturday night’s Duncanville vs. Galena Park North Shore game, which had the potential to draw over 40,000 spectators as state title game matchups between the two schools in 2018, 2019 and 2021 all drew over 42,000.
Last year, the 10 UIL 11-man football state championship games attracted 211,337 spectators — an average of 21,133.7 fans per game. That year the total was 164,674 – an average of 18,297 going into the Duncanville game.
Since 2016 and excluding 2020 when UIL limited viewership due to the pandemic, UIL has drawn more than 200,000 for its 11-man state title games each year. The peak of this span was in 2016 when the total was 235,321 and six games drew more than 20,000 spectators.
On twitter: @DMNGregGriddle
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