California Memorial Stadium is set to host a sellout crowd of over 60,000 fans for the non-conference matchup between the California Golden Bears and the UCLA Bruins. This marks a significant attendance surge for California, which averaged 35,000 fans per home game last season and has not seen a crowd of this size since 2015. The stadium announced it would remove tarps covering seats in the south end zone in anticipation of the game.
The sellout announcement comes amidst ongoing scrutiny of fan attendance for the USC Trojans. While official attendance figures for USC's recent games against San Jose State (51,144) and Fresno State (53,014) were reported, The Post found that actual scanned attendance was considerably lower, with 35,575 for the San Jose State game and 45,833 for the Fresno State game. The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum has a capacity of 77,500.
UCLA has also experienced attendance challenges, averaging 37,282 fans per game last season in the Rose Bowl, which has a capacity exceeding 90,000. The Bruins have covered parts of their stadium's upper decks since 2021 due to low turnout. Saturday's game against California will also mark the coaching debut for UCLA's new head coach, Bob Chesney, and Tosh Lupoi's debut as head coach for the Golden Bears.