Where is everybody?

Photo Credit: Tormenta FC

Saturday's game against Knoxville started out great. Niall Reid-Stephen scored off a beautiful pass from Mason Tunbridge early to electrify the crowd as Tormenta went ahead 1-0.

About that crowd though. There were only 496 in attendance for the game that saw a delay of more than an hour following lightning nearby (perhaps I shouldn't have said electrified the crowd in that last sentence.) Before the delay, the heat index was again more than 100 degrees at kickoff and while the threat of storms never materialized at Tormenta Stadium, there was enough of a threat that it likely kept some fans home.

A few weeks ago, Richard Strickland over at Southeast Soccer Report took a look at Tormenta's attendance, or lack thereof, and tried to figure out what's going on. It's a good article and worth your time.

He noted that Statesboro is home to Georgia Southern and its 26,000 students, its proximity to Savannah and a region with 430,000 people in it and wondered why the attendance at Tormenta games isn't higher.

It's a good question and I'd love to see more people at games. For the 2022 title game, there were more than 3,000 people there, including several Chattanooga fans, which created an atmosphere that hasn't been seen since at Tormenta Stadium.

So what gives? 

South Georgia has seen some wild fluctuations in their attendance this season, from a high of 1,146 for their first Jagermeister Cup game with Greenville, to lows of 377 (June 25 against Naples) and 378 (May 10 against Spokane) There are some extenuating circumstances with both of those low points, but we'll get to that.

On the season, Tormenta is averaging 707 fans per game using figures from the USL website. Not great for a region with more than 400,000. It's also down an average of 400 fans from last season's average of 1.107, according to stats kept by Alex Ashton. 

In John Morrissey's latest newsletter, he also talks attendance throughout the USL and noted that the league, as a whole, has seen an increase in attendance. However, Tormenta is at the bottom of the rankings for crowd size, trailing Charlotte by 143 fans per match. South Georgia and Charlotte are the only teams in the league to average fewer than 1,200 fans a game. 

As Strickland noted in his article, the youth academy program at Tormenta is robust and event those families that choose to participate in the recreation department's soccer program are aware of Tormenta. There are flags and signs around the stadium on gameday and the location is directly across from Publix, one of the few grocery stores in Statesboro. It's not an awareness problem as I regularly have coworkers ask me how Tormenta is doing or when their next game is.

So where does the problem lie? I think there's three factors, two of which are slightly intertwined, that need to be overcome in order to see South Georgia's attendance increase.

Let's start with the elephant in the room, Georgia Southern. Yes, there are 26,000 students at Georgia Southern and presumably some of them played soccer and are interested in watching soccer while in school there. And as Strickland pointed out, some do, including the Flight Crew, a supporters group for Tormenta comprised of Georgia Southern students. 

A quick aside, I think it was 2023 that members of the Tormenta team went to watch and support the Flight Crew in one of their intramural soccer games on campus. I thought that was a cool thing for the players to do and I'm quite sure the Flight Crew appreciated the gesture.)

But back to Georgia Southern and their students. If you're wanting to watch a soccer game, wouldn't you just go to an Eagles game and support your school and, at least in theory, your classmates rather than the team across town. Obviously there's no reason you can't do both, but part of the college experience is going to games with your friends and unless you have a reason to go to Tormenta games, the Eagles games are most likely the default option for students there.

The other part about Georgia Southern that, I think, impacts Tormenta attendance is that Statesboro is thoroughly a college town. When people think of sports in Statesboro, they're referring to Georgia Southern or a smaller subset that is referring to high school sports. Let's be honest, if they're referring to high school sports, they're talking high school football here. I have friends who are baseball and football season ticket holders for Georgia Southern, meaning most of their weekends from August to November and February to May are taken up with those games. There's a connection to the town that goes back to when locals won the bid to be the site of the First District A&M school in 1906. Statesboro wanted the school here and continues to support it strongly today. 

That's not to say it won't happen, but it's going to take time. When Georgia Southern football restarted back in the early 1980s, they played games at Statesboro High School. Now they have a 25,000 seat stadium. But it takes time and that's not something that Tormenta has had a lot of at this point.

I know I've written a lot about Georgia Southern, but it's impossible to overstate the importance of the university to Statesboro and the surrounding area. And because the town and city have such a close relationship, people in the community are going to support Georgia Southern and that's a tough challenge that Tormenta faces for local sports fans deciding how to spend their free time. 

The other two factors that, I think, impact Tormenta's attendance are more intertwined. Weather and kickoff times. 

Traditionally, Tormenta has kicked off at 7:30 p.m. for their home games. And you need to look no further than the Naples game I mentioned earlier as to why. Even with the later kickoff time, the heat index was still above 100 throughout the first half and even midway through the second half. I checked at 9:10 p.m. that night and it still felt like 98 degrees in Statesboro. You have to be a diehard fan to go to a game in those conditions. That's not just hot, that's soaking hot. 

Add to that the fact it was a Wednesday game and you've got a recipe for a low attendance game in Statesboro. 

But starting earlier means the heat is still going to be rough, so later start times are needed both for a player and fan safety component, but to create the most enjoyable experience possible. No one is going to have fun in those temperatures so if you can avoid it as much as possible, you need to do that. AV Alta and Spokane have both had 8 p.m. kickoff times this year for, I assume, the same reason.

The difference between those teams and South Georgia is they are located in the population center of their region. As Strickland mentioned in his article, Statesboro is relatively close to Savannah and should be able to draw from that population, but the later kickoff times makes that a harder sell than it might otherwise be. 

For starters, Savannah is about an hour away from Statesboro. Not that far, but far enough that it makes one consider a trip to Statesboro. And this is where the kickoff time to beat the heat meets the relative proximity to Savannah.

I've got family who live about 20 minutes from Tormenta Stadium. Like me, my brother grew up playing soccer and follows the Premier League and Tormenta and does all the soccer things. 

But he also has young kids. And if the game ends at 9:30, it's close to 10:00 before he gets them home and after a bath and getting them to bed, it could be close to 10:30 or 10:45 before they're asleep. While I love my nephews, that's much too late for them to be awake. My youngest is only six and when we take him to games, my wife has to take him home at halftime for the same reason.

Even Saturday's match is an example of this issue. A quick glance at the weather forecast Saturday afternoon showed storms predicted to hit Statesboro around halftime. There aren't many casual fans who are going to drive an hour for one half of soccer before having to either wait out a delay in their car or get home at midnight. 

But starting the game earlier risks a truly uncomfortable experience thanks to the heat. Early this season Tormenta did have a few games that started at 7 p.m. and at the end of September and October the home games for South Georgia will be at 7 p.m. But mid-April to mid-September, there's not much other than building a dome that can be done to combat the heat. And that makes it a difficult balancing act between later kickoff times and convenience for fans in Savanah and surrounding areas. 

Like the Naples game, the attendance for the match with Spokane was likely affected by weather. In this case, it was the threat of thunderstorms all day and evening, Even as they were able to get the game in, I understood people not wanting to drive an hour from Savannah for a game that might get postponed. 

While that game was able to be played, Tormenta did have a W-League game postponed from a Wednesday night to Thursday at 9 a.m. due to heavy rains so it's not like this kind of thing doesn't happen. And if you think Wednesday night games are bad for attendance, I think there were five of us, including me and my oldest, in the stands when that W-League game started. 

So those are the factors I see affecting Tormenta's attendance. Now here's the part of the post where I say how to address them.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I don't have a clue. Statesboro is a college town through and through and it's going to take a while for people who are looking for sports to attend to not automatically think of Georgia Southern, be it football, baseball, volleyball or even soccer. That seems to be the default setting here. And the twin issues of distance to Savannah and weather is not easily fixed. Even if you are able to come from Savannah for every game, you're asking for a roughly four to five hour commitment for 15 times a year, primarily on Saturdays. (Weekday games are a whole different story.)

As the saying goes, nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd. If and when Tormenta games start to draw a sizeable crowd regularly, that seems like it will snowball into bigger and bigger crowds as people come out to see what everyone else is coming out to see. The trick is figuring out how to get a crowd there in the first place. 

Tormenta has had success building a relationship with the nearby town of Claxton. They've had their high school drum line perform at several games and different community events at games to draw from there, but Claxton is about 30 minutes away and has a population of just 2,600. (Claxton also claims to be the Fruitcake Capital of the World.) It'll take a concerted effort with other similarly sized small towns around Statesboro to see attendance grow. 

Tormenta is on the road for the remainder of the month and doesn't return home until August 2. The forecast for that day calls for hot temperatures and a chance of afternoon thunderstorms. We'll see what impact that has on attendance.