Dabo Swinney addresses his expectations for spring game attendance without TV broadcast
Dabo Swinney still has great expectations for Clemson’s spring game attendance despite it not being on TV. Heck, the head coach wants preseason games to make it an event!
“We’re gonna produce it,” Swinney said. “I mean we’re doing our own in-house type of a deal. And, you know, so it’d be a good day where, you know, again, we got, we’re gonna definitely have a game type of deal … Lot of fun, a bunch of recruits coming in, you know, it’s a great opportunity to come out and see our team.
“Everybody’s going to play, everybody’s going to have an opportunity to see the guys. And you know, we got a few guys that will take a ton of rest, but we may not tackle them … It’s going to be a good, competitive day, be a lot of fun.”
Swinney’s hoping for great attendance at the spring game, even if it’s not on television. It’s a big selling point for the football program.
“That’s kind of what I’m hoping,” Swinney said. ‘You know, it’s kind of always been easy, but we’ve always had great crowds at the spring game, because we could have had it on TV. It was our decision for it not to be on TV. It wasn’t like somebody didn’t want to do it, just we made the decision to do our own in-house thing … I hope that that’ll mean even more people to come. It’s just a free opportunity to come see the Tigers, and we need it. And again, as I’ve said many times, this is the only opportunity that we have to create a game a field like where there’s some, you know, goosebumps and the lump in your throat and you know, you’re out there, and it feels like a game …
“I wish we, you know, if we had two preseason games, y’all think we could get 50-plus-thousand people to show up and see the Tigers play a preseason game in August? I guarantee you we could, and that’d be great, but we don’t get that.”
Teams around the country have been cancelling spring games, sometimes due to the threat of tampering. Not Swinney and Clemson!
“No, I’m not worried about that stuff,” Swinney said. “I mean, people are gonna tamper. They don’t want to be here, don’t be here. I mean, we’ll go get somebody, really not worried about it. You can’t run from that stuff. People tamper, they tamper. Kids want to leave, they can leave. We’re at the top of the nation, I think, two years in a row of retention. But, you know, maybe half the team leaves in a couple weeks. I don’t know, we’ll see. We’ll find out.”
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