OMAHA–It’s a bracket championship game on a beautiful Sunday evening, so you’d think Rosenblatt would be rocking. Instead, it’s one more embarrassingly small crowd during this CWS. A few minutes ago, I counted 78 people in the entire four sections comprising the red seats down the right-field line. There are far more empty seats than occupied seats in the right-field bleachers, and just about every section in the ballpark seems to be speckled with swaths of empty seats. What is going on here? I’m tired of hearing the locals whine about the format change; pushing the start back one day and spacing things out a little really shouldn’t have this much impact. That doesn’t explain why the last two days of weekend baseball have been so poorly attended. It’s the College World Series, and it has featured a number of very compelling matchups and exciting finishes. It’s a pity there seems to be so little interest from the locals this year.

UPDATE: We just got word that tonight’s attendance is a disgraceful 15,125, bringing the overall CWS attendance to 265,940. That’s 34,762 behind last year’s pace.

One of my favorite readers just e-mailed to suggest that perhaps the sluggish economy is a reason so many fans have stayed home this year. I’m sure that has at least something to do with it.

NCAA Blog Central.