For the first time in almost a century, the University of Rhode Island football team is not playing in the backyard of its Kingston campus, and attendance is suffering because of it.
Renovations to Meade Stadium began in the winter of 2025 and are projected to finish by the start of the 2027 football season. In the meantime, URI is playing its games at Centreville Bank Stadium in Pawtucket.
The Rams scheduled five home games for this season and currently boast a 1-0 record at Centreville following a 31-10 victory over Elon University on Sept. 12.
Centreville Bank has an official capacity of 10,500, while Meade Stadium sat at 6,555 prior to the renovations.
Official attendance for the home opener came in at 4,306. Over the last two seasons, the Rams have had an average attendance of 5,270 for home games. Across 2022 and 2023, home attendance averaged at 4,837.
While that number has filled up Meade Stadium, Centreville Bank looked pretty desolate.
Saturday’s opponent showed what’s possible in Pawtucket on Friday with a reported sellout at the same venue. What’s stopping Rhode Island from replicating that success?
The travel to the stadium from South County is the main culprit. Rhode Islanders are notorious for not wanting to travel anywhere longer than 30 minutes unless they have to. Now, URI is asking fans to travel almost an hour on a Saturday morning to watch them.
That shouldn’t be an unreasonable ask since the team was ranked in the top 10 in both the Stats Perform and American Football Coaches Association poll when the home opener kicked off.
Unfortunately, URI seemingly did not account for one thing when trying to make sure attendance transferred over to Pawtucket.
A majority of students, especially those who live off-campus, are not going to wake up at 10 a.m. and either drive or take a bus they have to pay $11 for to watch this team. They are going to either be hungover, still sleeping or working their part-time job.
URI estimates its undergraduate enrollment to be above 15,000. For the home opener, more than 250 students traveled in seven buses provided by the university to attend the game, Associate Athletics Director of Marketing Brigid St. Leger said in a Sept. 18 Board of Trustees meeting.
While students are fortunate to not have to pay for tickets to football games, the cost of everything else is rising. URI essentially forcing students to incur additional costs on what had been a previously free experience, other than concessions, feels like a massive oversight.
High expectations were placed on the program to become national title contenders. Instead, an offseason surgery to fifth-year quarterback Devin Farrell that has held him out longer than expected and a multitude of other mishaps have pushed the Rams to a 2-3 record and out of both national rankings.
The Rams’ latest result, a 22-18 loss to North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University, could have killed Rhode Island’s playoff hopes prior to even its second home game of the season and just adds to the list of reasons to not travel to Pawtucket.
Saturday’s 44th annual Governor’s Cup hopes to drive up attendance numbers, but in what already seems like a lost season both on the field and in the stands, who cares?
