Spring Scrimmages Are Now Big Business For College Football

This past weekend, more than 160,000 college football fans showed up for the spring scrimmages of Alabama and Auburn. Those are the biggest crowds for spring games this year, and show that even scrimmages can be big money for the schools.

In the case of Auburn, they charged $5 per ticket (students were free) for the game in which attendance was reported to be 83,401. That's nearly $400,000 for a game that is essentially a glorified practice. And that doesn't include concession sales.

Of the 72 Division I (FBS) spring games played so far, schools have averaged 17,559 tickets distributed. And the SEC leads the way with seven of the ten largest crowds reported. Here are the top 20 attendance figures so far (data via SBNation.com)...