It isn’t about attendance. Since most Ivy League sports matches are attended by tiny crowds. Kids often are watched by fewer people in college than they were in high school.
Simple reason. There’s no scoreboard at the glee club concert. This quote is from a Haverford trustee:
“In sports, people keep score. If Haverford gives a music concert, no one scores it a C-minus. But if you play a basketball game and lose, 87-42, everybody sees that in the newspaper the next day. There’s no way around it. Your peers, your faculty, your students and your alumni all know the score. You lost, 87-42.”
If schools did not recruit athletes, then they’d lose every game. You can’t have that – you have to be at least somewhat competitive. But the C minus glee club still sounds pretty good and pleases the crowd. Which is going to be massive as compared to the crowd at a XC meet or field hockey game.
But no one knows or cares if the Swarthmore glee club is better.