BE attendance so far

[Atticus]

Someone put this together on the Prov scout board.

Team ..... Last Year ..... This Year ... Percentage

Creighton ... 17,155 ........ 17,684 ....... +3.1%
Butler ........ 7,899 .......... 7,965 ........ +.84%
Xavier ....... 9,781 .......... 9,825 ......... +.45%
-------------------------------------------------- ---------------------
Marquette .. 15,033 ........ 14,949 ....... -.56%
Providence... 7,772 ......... 7,531 ......... -3.1%
St. John's ... 7,330 .......... 6,996 ........ -4.6%
Villanova ..... 8,022 ......... 7,134 ......... -11.1%
Seton Hall ... 7,035 ......... 6,237 ......... -11.3%
DePaul ....... 7,681 .......... 6,109 ......... -20.5%
Georgetown . 10,911 ....... 8,664 ......... -20.6%
-------------------------------------------------- ----------------------

Mostly ugly.

Don't attendance figures generally represent the season ticket holder base since it's really tickets sold and not butts in the seats?

[wardle2wade]

I imagine the near sell out games of Xavier and St johns will pull MU about even as last year.

[Norm]

Are these all home games, or just BE games? The Georgetown number could be explained away with probably just missing the one home game against Syracuse - the only game each season they would come close to selling out.

[jsheim]

Don't like it but not a disaster...kind of expected given the teams and their fanbases and the rivalries that left. Also down year for Georgetown.

# of bids will make a diff next year.

Big east still redefining itself. I think its ok if next year is equivalent to this year.

[Tugg Speedman]

I assume last year was all of last year.  Most teams have their best attended home games near the end of the season.

As noted above, we still have X, Creighton, Georgetown coming.  Historically Georgetown is one of our highest attended games and with X and Creighton good, the should be well attended.

So I expect our average to go up and would not be surprised if we break last years average.  I also expect a lot of other teams to go up too.

Lastly the brutal winter has probably depressed walk up sales.  Hard to get excited about a 10 block walk too see a Seton Hall when it's 9 degrees outside.

[TedBaxter]

Villanova's is deceiving as they've only played 1 game off-campus so far and had 14,000 for that game against Creighton at the Wells Fargo Center.  They still have to play St. John's, Marquette and Georgetown at the Wells Fargo Center, so expect their attendance to increase dramatically in the next month.

[T-Bone]

I'd be curious to see a comparison for a winter with as crappy as this one has been vs a prior year where the weather wasn't as bad.  There's been a few that I haven't made the drive up from Chicago based on that alone.  Just another factor to consider.

[MerrittsMustache]

Eh. Weather and mediocre plays seems like it would drive away 84 MU fans per game.

[WarriorDoc]

If anyone's watching the St John's vs. Seton Hall game it's pretty embarrassing in terms of attendance.  I would be surprised if there are 1-2k people there.

[Tugg Speedman]

If anyone's watching the St John's vs. Seton Hall game it's pretty embarrassing in terms of attendance.  I would be surprised if there are 1-2k people there.

I saw that too.  Pretty bad considering St. Johns fans can travel to this game in less than an hour.

My impression was our game Tuesday had more people.

[MUBasketball]

If anyone's watching the St John's vs. Seton Hall game it's pretty embarrassing in terms of attendance.  I would be surprised if there are 1-2k people there.

Agreed but given the weather surprised they are even playing. SMU @ Rutgers (not far from Newark) was postponed tonight.

[AirPunches]

If anyone's watching the St John's vs. Seton Hall game it's pretty embarrassing in terms of attendance.  I would be surprised if there are 1-2k people there.

Id be surprised if there was more than 200. Must be the weather. Georgetown takes the crown for most pathetic fanbase in the big east in terms of showing up to games.

[Logi4three]

I believe the announcers said right before half that SH asked fans to stay home due to weather.

[chapman]

Eh. Weather and mediocre plays seems like it would drive away 84 MU fans per game.

Yep, was expecting much worse.  Not bad at all.  I suppose a lot of the others felt more of the loss from losing the UConn, Syracuse, and Pitt fans in the northeast and had deeper and longer rivalries with them to draw their own fans to games.

Villanova is also misleading, as four of their five home games have been at the 6,500 seat Pavillion.  Three of the remaining four are at the 19,500 seat Wells Fargo Center, including Saturday games against SJU and Georgetown.  It probably won't sell out, but it will get that average up.

I believe the announcers said right before half that SH asked fans to stay home due to weather.

So one listened, and the other showed up? 

[Coleman]

Someone put this together on the Prov scout board.

Team ..... Last Year ..... This Year ... Percentage

Creighton ... 17,155 ........ 17,684 ....... +3.1%
Butler ........ 7,899 .......... 7,965 ........ +.84%
Xavier ....... 9,781 .......... 9,825 ......... +.45%
-------------------------------------------------- ---------------------
Marquette .. 15,033 ........ 14,949 ....... -.56%
Providence... 7,772 ......... 7,531 ......... -3.1%
St. John's ... 7,330 .......... 6,996 ........ -4.6%
Villanova ..... 8,022 ......... 7,134 ......... -11.1%
Seton Hall ... 7,035 ......... 6,237 ......... -11.3%
DePaul ....... 7,681 .......... 6,109 ......... -20.5%
Georgetown . 10,911 ....... 8,664 ......... -20.6%
-------------------------------------------------- ----------------------

Mostly ugly.

Don't attendance figures generally represent the season ticket holder base since it's really tickets sold and not butts in the seats?

There's an incredibly easy explanation for this.

Those whose attendance went up this year moved to a more competitive conference. It is all 3 teams new to the Big East. Their fans are jacked up.

Those that went down went from the best conference in college basketball to the 4th best conference, it's hard to get the casual fans excited about that.

Rivals have been lost. There is no Georgetown Syracuse game or MU Louisville game to sell out.

[muhoosier260]

There's an incredibly easy explanation for this.

Those whose attendance went up this year moved to a more competitive conference. It is all 3 teams new to the Big East. Their fans are jacked up.

Those that went down went from the best conference in college basketball to the 4th best conference, it's hard to get the casual fans excited about that.

Rivals have been lost. There is no Georgetown Syracuse game or MU Louisville game to sell out.

Sadly, I think you got this one right. I am surprised by Nova though, especially with the year they've had.

[ChicosBailBonds]

There's an incredibly easy explanation for this.

Those whose attendance went up this year moved to a more competitive conference. It is all 3 teams new to the Big East. Their fans are jacked up.

Those that went down went from the best conference in college basketball to the 4th best conference, it's hard to get the casual fans excited about that.

Rivals have been lost. There is no Georgetown Syracuse game or MU Louisville game to sell out.

Maybe, but Butler and Xavier barely moved up.  Xavier is almost at capacity, so that's explainable, but Butler is still only coming in about 75% capacity.

[MU Fan in Connecticut]

Yes, yesterday we just had a foot + of snow with rain and ice sandwiched in between.  Not particularly good driving weather.

[GOO]

So, with Marquette's remaining games all of which should be above our season average, we will have better attendance than last year.  Nice to see.  Really surprising given the weather and the on court performance this year.

I for one am impressed.  Now, obviously, last years NCAA tourni performance helped sell some tickets before the season started, I'd guess.

[Coleman]

Maybe, but Butler and Xavier barely moved up.  Xavier is almost at capacity, so that's explainable, but Butler is still only coming in about 75% capacity.

Butler sucks this year. It proves my point even more. Their move to the Big East is responsible.

[GGGG]

That Marquette number surprises me...in a good way.

[T-Bone]

That Marquette number surprises me...in a good way.

Yeah me too.  Having lost .56% in a "down" year with lots of crap weather, seems like not so bad.  And with bigger games coming up over the next few weeks, might end up in a net positive.

[Dawson Rental]

Maybe, but Butler and Xavier barely moved up.  Xavier is almost at capacity, so that's explainable, but Butler is still only coming in about 75% capacity.

In 2009, Hinkle Fieldhouse's capacity was reduced to 10,000, so they are at close to 80% capacity (79.65%).  Considering the huge reduction in their team's competitiveness this year, any increase is impressive.

[source?]

Ohio State really helped us this season, fortunately we have Wisconsin next season to fill that role. Tomorrow is a sellout, so we will have a significant bump. We have Georgetown and Creighton at home yet and I would assume those will each be around/slightly over 16,000. We will be up from last year in the end.

The 3 new teams reasons for the jump are obvious.

Nova will be pretty close to last year by the end. Georgetown will probably not.

Overall, I expect the conference's average attendance to be a little over 10,000 this year. Not bad, should still be in the top 4. When Creighton is down and once the new guys have settled in, will we maintain that? We will see.

[chapman]

Team ..... Last Year ..... This Year ... Percentage
Marquette .. 15,033 ........ 15,233 ....... +1.33%


Updated total for us after 18,644 for Xavier, 112 short of season high (Ohio State).  Nets us positive for the year and second in both attendance and yr/yr change.  Very strong when factoring in all the things going against it: bad weather, worse team, less marquee conference draws, and the non-con slate having one good draw and the rest even worse than the norm.