Not even Alabama is immune to the decline in attendance taking place across the college football landscape. Alabama, though, is combating that trend aggressively by offering up perks to events that, for Crimson Tide students, seemingly come every year.
The university, according to the New York Times, is offering improved access to the SEC Championship Game and College Football Playoff. Alabama is uniquely equipped to divvy out such perks to students because, unlike most programs in the sport, Alabama is watching them. Using an app called "Tide Loyalty Points," Alabama will use location-tracking technology to see how long fans are staying at home games. Students who stay through the fourth quarter will get priority access to those postseason games.
After infamously complaining about student attendance last season during nonconference play, it's clear students leaving early is a pet peeve of coach Nick Saban. Just this past weekend, it was again a point of contention for him as fans filed out early during a 62-10 rout of New Mexico State.
"I think it enhances the value of our program if our stadium is full and people stay for 60 minutes in the game, aight," Saban said via 247Sports. "So, from my standpoint, I always want to see the stadium full and I want to see people stay for 60 minutes in the game. We expect our players to compete for 60 minutes in the game. I'm not satisfied with the way some of our players competed in the fourth quarter, the second-team guys and all that. I mean, I'd like to see them get supported just like some of the people that are fun to watch, alright.
"So, I would love for the students there for the whole game, and I know we've tried to enhance with some of the things that we're doing to try to get them to do that. But that's a choice and decision they've got to make. But all these things affect the program, aight, because people come and we have recruits and here, and they want to see a full house and all that."
Tracking students' whereabouts -- and offering perks for those who do what Saban desires -- could certainly be a way to combat this trend. It's also considered by some a privacy concern. Because Alabama is a public university (and by extension, an arm of the government), tracking locations of individuals is "very alarming," privacy watchdog Adam Schwartz, a lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told the Times.
"Why should packing the stadium in the fourth quarter be the last time the government wants to know where students are?" Schwartz said. "A public university is a teacher, telling students what is proper in a democratic society."
Alabama and Saban have a week off from worrying about student attendance. Before the Tide return home to face Southern Miss on Sept. 21, they travel to South Carolina to face the Gamecocks in Columbia in Week 3.
