CSNbbs

How much noise 2000 kids can make. Would be a great atmosphere if we could get just 2000 folks out to our games. USI had 2200 when I was there and it felt like a "real" college basketball game.

(02-09-2023 01:29 PM)mjs Wrote: [ -> ]How much noise 2000 kids can make. Would be a great atmosphere if we could get just 2000 folks out to our games. USI had 2200 when I was there and it felt like a "real" college basketball game.

There's been a ton of talk on the USI forum this year about attendance.
It seems the general consensus (on our board) is that every team is reporting tickets sold, not actual attendance. Except USI - it seems like they are only counting tickets scanned at the door.

Just curious if any of you guys had insight into that?

Watching streams of games at arenas around the conference, it really looks like USI draws the biggest crowd by a significantly wide margin, but on paper they are in 2nd place in the OVC (2362 compared to Little Rock's 2599).

(02-09-2023 04:47 PM)schnautza Wrote: [ -> ]

(02-09-2023 01:29 PM)mjs Wrote: [ -> ]How much noise 2000 kids can make. Would be a great atmosphere if we could get just 2000 folks out to our games. USI had 2200 when I was there and it felt like a "real" college basketball game.

There's been a ton of talk on the USI forum this year about attendance.
It seems the general consensus (on our board) is that every team is reporting tickets sold, not actual attendance. Except USI - it seems like they are only counting tickets scanned at the door.

Just curious if any of you guys had insight into that?

Watching streams of games at arenas around the conference, it really looks like USI draws the biggest crowd by a significantly wide margin, but on paper they are in 2nd place in the OVC (2362 compared to Little Rock's 2599).

No idea what we do, but we certainly are not counting butts in the seats. I agree that the attendance I've seen around the conference doesn't jive with the reported attendance numbers. I used to think we were counting tickets sold plus walkups and students, since I believe we had around 1500 season ticket holders at one time. But, I don't think we have that many now. So, I don't know if the number is simply made up or if it a "real" number of some type. I know we used to give tickets to companies who donated money or gifts in kind. Most of those tickets are never used, but they have been distributed and we get something in return from the businesses. USI had, at least, 3X what we typically draw when I was there. I was impressed and jealous. It's hard for me to believe that the NCAA and/or OVC will let you announce whatever attendance figure you want. Seems like there has to be some basis for it- if the tickets are sold (paid for) an argument can be made that they can be counted. While I personally believe "butts in the seats" should be what is reported, I'm not sure I really want to know that number is for us this season. But we have been exaggerating attendance for decades. I'll bore you with a short story from almost 40 years ago;

When Mike Newell became our coach in the mid-1980's we played our games at the Statehouse Convention Center downtown where they set-up seats on risers. When we started filling it, we announced the attendance as somewhere around 5000. I figured it sat about half of that. When we played the league tournament championship game there, we actually added some seats and filled them all and the attendance was announced as approximately 2800. Friends of mine where enraged that we reported such an "underestimate" of the attendance. I figured the league (TAAC Conference) office demanded an accurate attendance count for the tournament for accounting purposes but didn't care what we announced during the regular season. 2800 sounded about right to me, but most fans couldn't understand why we didn't announce over 5000.

Our new arena seats 4800. I'd love to see it filled one day

(02-09-2023 05:48 PM)schnautza Wrote: [ -> ]Our new arena seats 4800. I'd love to see it filled one day

The bottom level was about full when I was there. It created a great atmosphere. Our women played at 11:30 today for a "kid's day" game. Kids from schools around Little Rock filled the lower bowl which probably seats 2500 or so. The kid's attention span slowly waned, but for the first half the atmosphere was electric. If only we could get 2500 enthusiastic fans to our men's games.

I agree that it would be wonderful to have better crowds. As long as DW is there the crowds will be abysmal because the program is total garbage and has been for a couple of seasons now. Win more games and the crowds will improve. Bottom line.

USI looked like a great arena environment. When SEMO moved from D2 to D1, we averaged 5000+ the first 4 years and then gradually declined to what it is now, sadly. Hoping Coach Korn can at least bring back half of that with an active student body. I feel the Saturday afternoon games are a detriment to attendance. A 7pm saturday men's game was the norm for years. Good luck to both LR and SI the rest of the year