Anyone who has followed Kansas University football over the years knows Memorial Stadium attendance figures are like manufacturers suggested retail prices on automobiles.

They’re much higher than the invoice.

Empty bleachers served as the backdrop for Kansas University athletic director Al Bohl at the start of last year's KU-Wyoming football game. The crowd was estimated at 24,000, while an audit revised that figure down to 20,578.

For instance, KU officials pegged the crowd for last Saturday’s home opener against Southwest Missouri State at 40,500.

Were there really that many people in the stadium? Probably not, but the estimate was reasonable. From another perspective, the estimate was much too high. No way that many people bought a ticket.

Thousands of students were admitted free under auspices of the “KU First” scholarship giveaway. Then there were a few thousand high school bandsmen, plus hundreds of media, support personnel and, of course, players and coaches.

So how many people really paid to enter the stadium for the home opener?

Susan Wachter, chief financial officer for the athletic department, won’t know until after the season when an audit is complete.

However, when the Jayhawks opened at home last year also against Southwest Missouri State the crowd was estimated at 37,500, yet an audit showed only 23,097 actually paid for a ticket. That, too, was a “KU First” promotion, but it was not Band Day.

KU’s largest paid attendances in 2001 were against Nebraska (41,080) and Oklahoma (37,967). In contrast, the estimated crowds for those games were 50,750 and 48,700.

When it comes to Kansas football, the announced crowd is always larger than the paid crowd.

How do they arrive at the estimated attendance? Three top athletic department officials director Al Bohl and aides Richard Konzem and Doug Vance huddle to come up with a figure.

“We’re in contact with the ticket office about the walk-up numbers,” Vance said. “And we talk with our marketing people and figure in season tickets sold. It’s just an estimate, not an actual count because we don’t have turnstiles.”

Sometimes, however, the estimated crowd is not based on how many people are in the stadium, but on how many tickets were sold.

Case in point: Last year’s Wyoming game.

Postponed until the last week of the season because of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the KU-Wyoming game was played in front of a landscape of aluminum bench seats.

¢ www.kusports.com

Nevertheless, KU’s three-man committee pegged that crowd at 24,000 when it was obvious fewer than 10,000 fans were actually on hand. Why 24,000? The figure was based on tickets sold, and even it turned out to be high. The real number of tickets sold to the Wyoming game, as determined later, was 20,578, making it the smallest paid crowd of the ’01 season.

Kansas played seven games in Memorial Stadium last year and, based on the estimated crowds, drew an average of 39,493 fans per game. And yet the paid attendance at those games the number submitted to the NCAA by Wachter was only 25,346. Putting it another way, KU’s paid attendance was about 14,000 less than its estimated attendance.

Not that non-paying customers are all that bad. Compared to 2000, KU’s concession revenue jumped nearly $5,000 per game in 2001.

When Kansas was a member of the Big Eight Conference, revenue from games involving two league schools was divided between the two participants based on the paid attendance. But Big 12 Conference rules allow the home team to keep all of the revenue. In other words, when Nebraska plays at Kansas, KU keeps all the money, but when the Jayhawks go to Lincoln, NU pockets all the dollars.

Non-conference numbers are based on contractual guarantees. Southwest Missouri State, for example, was assured a payoff of $250,000 regardless of the size of Saturday’s crowd.

Thanks to a concerted campaign, Kansas has sold more than 26,000 season tickets for the 2002 season the highest figure in more than three decades and that means one thing: KU’s average paid crowd of 25,346 in 2001 will rise noticeably in 2002.