The unofficial online home for fans of the UAB Blazers. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

(12-04-2016 06:58 PM)randy22263 Wrote:  

(12-04-2016 06:22 PM)Shrack Wrote:  

(12-04-2016 06:19 PM)BamaScorpio69 Wrote:  

(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.

Like UAB did under Bartow. Unfortunately those days are gone and UAB is now a stepping stone job for up and coming coaches or retreads. The conference we're in will always be a detriment to this program. No one in Birmingham is going to get excited about playing MTSU, WKU, Marshall, etc. in basketball. It is what it is.

Exactly. Only thing you can do is win consistently and get back to the NCAAs most years. We had momentum going last year and we bombed. Your average joe fan wants to see their local team beating top 50 teams, not losing to 200 RPI teams at home. Otherwise they will not show up.

These are good points. It's funny how after a sellout crowd we are having this conversation. I really feel we are simply deflecting the real concern: we just lost to Auburn two straight years when we were probably a better team. If we had won last night no one would have mentioned the number of Auburn fans. We are looking at losing all four games in this series to them and that scares the crap out of us. We are not the program we once was. We all know that. Whether we can reach that level again is the question. Our current path would suggest no.