The way in which tickets are distributed and sold is the reason for low attendance.  If you go online (to either school's ticket site) early on, you are told that all tickets are sold except for a few sections (not on the sidelines).  As time goes by, different sections become available, until the day of the game, when people can get a seat anywhere in the stadium, even though they had been previously told those seats were not available.  Many don't take the risk of going to the stadium and getting a seat, even though MANY are always available. Why don't tickets for all seats go on sale at once, and leave it at that?  And I'm not talking about the blocks of seats that are sold to ticket brokers to be sold at a higher price, or with a high "service fee" attached.