(12-14-2021 11:01 AM)Hart Foundation Wrote:  The upside for JMU's Sun Belt basketball attendance will be ODU, the downside will be almost everyone else. In the last non-COVID year, the CAA averaged 2,400 per game, the Sun Belt averaged 13% less at 2,100 per game. It is not a basketball league.
App State avg 1000, Coastal Carolina avg 1200, Ga State 1700, Ga Southern 1900. They can't even get fans at home. Surely, their fans won't attend a road game at JMU.

Marshall avg 6,000 which is good for a mid-major. Still it is 4 1/2 hours away, which is prohibitive for most college basketball fans. I'm sure there are some Marshall alums in the valley that may give a little uptick for games in the AUBC.

OOC scheduling will be critical to get regional D-1 teams that resonate with our fans and that includes former CAA peers. It is no different than JMU playing teams that left the CAA long ago. They are still good games. Richmond, George Mason, ODU, VCU all bailed on the CAA. Should we have stopped playing them forever since they hurt our feelings? Even ECU and Navy make sense to play as former conference mates with a history and geographical proximity.

Overall, college basketball attendance has declined more than 20% since its highwater mark in 1991. That is not happy news for us, but it is the reality. I'm happy with where attendance is at in year 2 of the AUBC and don't really expect it to get much better long term.

http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/m_basketba...ndance.pdf

Win and attendance will take care of itself in the 5K range. I quite frankly could give a rip about visitor attendance, barring it being a big name that aint gonna move the needle. We can get that with any of the other D1 schools in VA. There is absolutely no need to throw a bone to existing/current CAA schools just because we want to be nice guys.....that ship kinda sailed a month ago when each and everyone of them let it be known how they feel about JMU student athletes. This is NOT 13 to 20 years ago when this was a more common practice.....THE CAA is literally the only conference in American that in 2021 still wants to be petty and punish student athletes. So why the hell would JMU want to schedule them period......there are plenty of other schools in the mid-atlantic. If you want to see W&M play so badly buy a ticket and go to Williamsburg.