I don't brag on the A-Sun very much at all, but this is one time I think I can a little bit. With Gulf Coast doing what they're doing, eventually Campbell and Lipscomb will be where they need to be as well, and this will shape up to be a solid conference. JU has done what is necessary to bring their level up, UNF is showing signs of a pulse, it's a weak pulse, but there is a pulse there. Upstate will come around just based on getting the leftovers in and around the Carolinas. Now if these schools will just work harder at getting fannies in the seats....
And FWIW, Gulf Coast wll have atleast one NCAA appearance by 2017.

I don't see any fan bases materalizing. Case in point....Belmont

I think Gulf coast could materialize one. Hell, JU is doing alot better this year at drawing fans.

Now that is a little bit exciting. I would love to see Jacksonville with a fanbase. They are the closest thing to a SoCon style team in the A-sun. The only problem is that they are so far away I don't expect them to have a presence in the tournament at all.

I will be in attendance for Friday Night's HUGE game at the Arena downtown. Will be cool to see the Jax Area all riled up for Dolphin Basketball.

BTW, good post BucLover. My only concern is looking at the attendance of Belmont, barely drawing over 1K for some conference games. Solid, solid program, unfortunately folks up in Nashville don't seem to get it.

I've been down in Fort Myers a couple times and there's FGCU Athletics billboards and advertisements all over the place plus a lot of the restaurants have FGCU stuff on prominent display. They're averaging a bit over 1400 fans per home game - for Year 2 in Division I with no postseason play for another two years that's a solid start. They average over 1,000 fans for women's hoops home games too, which is also impressive for this league.

(01-27-2009 08:44 PM)Goldfinger Wrote:  Now that is a little bit exciting. I would love to see Jacksonville with a fanbase. They are the closest thing to a SoCon style team in the A-sun. The only problem is that they are so far away I don't expect them to have a presence in the tournament at all.

If anyone has attendance numbers for the SoCon, it would be interesting to see exactly what those teams are averaging. Aside from Davidson, and maybe CoC, I seriously doubt the other SoCon schools are bringing in much.

ATTENDANCE Home Avg Away Avg Neutral Avg Total attend Avg
Appalachian State 8-21382 2673 8-29560 3695 1-10173 10173 17-61115 3595
Chattanooga 7-22313 3188 10-50021 5002 3-8242 2747 20-80576 4029
Coll. of Charleston 10-38085 3808 9-38285 4254 0-0 0 19-76370 4019
Davidson 10-52712 5271 6-43521 7254 3-27429 9143 19-123662 6509
Elon 9-8721 969 8-47575 5947 0-0 0 17-56296 3312
Furman 8-8320 1040 10-46648 4665 0-0 0 18-54968 3054
Georgia Southern 7-17415 2488 8-36723 4590 2-9314 4657 17-63452 3732
Samford 9-5931 659 10-37489 3749 0-0 0 19-43420 2285
The Citadel 10-18965 1896 9-37839 4204 2-0 0 21-56804 2705
UNC Greensboro 7-7106 1015 11-46881 4262 0-0 0 18-53987 2999
Western Carolina 6-4528 755 9-37088 4121 3-16005 5335 18-57621 3201
Wofford 6-6552 1092 10-48764 4876 1-0 0 17-55316 3254
Totals 97-212030 2186 108-500394 4633 15-71163 4744 220-783587 3562

Thanks. So if I am reading this correctly, the avg "home" attendance for the 12 SoCon schools is 2,186. Where did you get these? Can you post the same for the ASun?

88

Regardless of what they are bringing now, and I don't know what that is....you can bet they will bring it to the tournament. The SoCon always has a strongly represented tournament.

I was just curious.

(01-28-2009 10:11 AM)etsuBucsFan1988 Wrote:  Thanks. So if I am reading this correctly, the avg "home" attendance for the 12 SoCon schools is 2,186. Where did you get these? Can you post the same for the ASun?

Came from Socon Web site. http://www.soconsports.com/

ATTENDANCE
Team | HOME GAMES Avg | AWAY GAMES Avg | NEUT GAMES Avg | ALL GAMES Avg |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Belmont | 9-16944 1883 | 9-45877 5097 | 1-0 0 | 19-62821 3306 |
Campbell | 8-13135 1642 | 9-14665 1629 | 2-0 0 | 19-27800 1463 |
ETSU | 9-29655 3295 | 8-24268 3034 | 3-1314 438 | 20-55237 2762 |
FGCU | 13-18354 1412 | 9-45883 5098 | 0-0 0 | 22-64237 2920 |
Jacksonville | 9-21710 2412 | 10-47130 4713 | 0-0 0 | 19-68840 3623 |
Kennesaw State | 8-7712 964 | 10-15524 1552 | 0-0 0 | 18-23236 1291 |
Lipscomb | 9-9852 1095 | 10-37753 3775 | 0-0 0 | 19-47605 2506 |
Mercer | 6-10521 1754 | 12-60850 5071 | 2-0 0 | 20-71371 3569 |
Stetson | 9-12599 1400 | 10-44054 4405 | 0-0 0 | 19-56653 2982 |
UNF | 7-5426 775 | 11-26202 2382 | 2-1676 838 | 20-33304 1665 |
USC Upstate | 6-5005 834 | 11-46220 4202 | 2-679 340 | 19-51904 2732 |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Totals | 93-150913 1623 | 109-408426 3747 | 12-3669 306 | 159-477820 3005

From Asun web site.

Thanks for posting the attendance numbers BP.

How about a estimate on the number in the stands for the JU/ETSU game Friday? I'll say 3,700.

(01-28-2009 11:06 AM)MylesKnight Wrote:  Thanks for posting the attendance numbers BP.

How about a estimate on the number in the stands for the JU/ETSU game Friday? I'll say 3,700.

Thanks BP. ASun was a little higher than I was expecting. I was thinking 1,200.

As far as the JU/ETSU game, I noticed in their box score from the Belmont game back in early Dec they had just under 4,300. They also have a "pack the house" promotion going on for this game. I hope it is a good crowd regardless.

I'd say around 5,000. JU has done a good job this year.

The A-Sun doesn't draw the fans my high school has for basketball. To put things in perspective, my high school has a current enrollment of approximately 350 and draws approximately 1800 per game.

I never thought I would see the quality of ETSU athletics fall this much in my lifetime (a paraphrase of a quote from the TV show St. Elsewhere).

Socon = 2186
Asun = 1623

A whopping difference of 563 fans per game.

Lets take out Davidson who used to draw flies and is having their best run ever and your SoCon average is 1780.

A difference of 157 FANS! Looks like your high school draws more than the mighty SoCon. BTW, the SoCon has two teams who draw less than the lowest ASUN team.

OH THE HUMANITY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(01-28-2009 04:58 PM)ETSUfan1 Wrote:  Socon = 2186
Asun = 1623

A whopping difference of 563 fans per game.

Lets take out Davidson who used to draw flies and is having their best run ever and your SoCon average is 1780.

A difference of 157 FANS! Looks like your high school draws more than the mighty SoCon. BTW, the SoCon has two teams who draw less than the lowest ASUN team.

OH THE HUMANITY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

563 fans, that's a difference of 26%. I believe we were told that an advantage to the A-Sun was larger markets. Looks like that was another myth.

I was hoping that in my lifetime we would begin to conceptualize ETSU moving forward in athletics, instead we as fans are satisfied with slow steps backward.

The hope here wasn't to start the attendance between the two conferences debate, but since you brought it up, Southern Conference numbers this season are artificially inflated due to the Curry factor. There was over 10,000 tonight I think at the UT-C/Davidson game, and every team the Wildcats have played on the road has seen a major increase in attendance.
As for Nashville/Belmont, it's REALLY TOUGH for them to compete with Vandy, UT, the Titans and the Predators (who with a horrible team and bad economy has seen an INCREASE in attendance). Entertainment dollars are very tight down there, but BU could do better at getting in the students. My thought here is with ETSU, Gulf Coast, JU, Belmont, and some combo of Mercer, KSU and Lipscomb, the A-Sun should become a fun basketball league.