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(12-04-2016 06:09 PM)Shrack Wrote:  UABs only averaged 4000-6000 MBB fans for at least 15 years. It's not exactly news. Many of the Auburn fans there were likely supportive of UAB, unless we're playing Auburn. Just like how plenty of Alabama fans are only secondary UAB fans. That's how it is.

Attendance goes up when you win consistently and beat good programs. That's what happened when Mike Anderson came in. Went from 3800 to 5000-6000 more regularly after we started winning and getting back to the NCAAs consistently. You want to start losing the sidewalk fans? Lose games to bad teams and you see about how large the hardcore UAB MBB fanbase is: 3000-4000 range.

And it's a combo of a lot of things. We now play in a terrible basketball conference. At a minimum, that will drag out attendance average down 500-1000 a year.

We don't have 8000 pure MBB UAB fans who are going to shutout opposing schools from buying tickets if their names are Auburn or Alabama. If we were playing Memphis at home, etc, those sidewalk Auburn/Alabama fans would be UAB fans for the night and such.

That's how it is right now whether anyone like's it or not

The only way to create pure UAB fans is to win for years at a time at the highest level.

edit: An obvious example would have been getting to the round of 32 after beating Iowa State and then the sweet sixteen the next year. Instead we killed our momentum and lost the first game of our tournament. Doesn't help that we've been consistently losing to the good teams we play during the regular season for years.

Great FN post!

Often we like to look at things through the revisionist lens to "Make UAB Basketball Great Again." We're only 10 years removed from playing very solid Top 50 teams at home during the conference season--and the crowd size hasn't fluctuated too much. I know the ticket price was controversial, but it was smart economics for the program; we sold out the game at a lucrative price point.

The fan base will continue to grow over time, as we have more next-gen UAB grads. I'm also inclined to think we have a lot of expat fans as well, who are part of the base but can only attend home games in special situations.

After every soul-crushing sellout loss, we always say "Well those fans will never be back." But they do come back. My hope is that we are able to really pack it in for the CUSA tournament. We need people in the upper deck for that week.