NBE Average Attendance

[DFW HOYA]

While updating some info on the basketball history pages, I located the attendance averages for the 16 teams scheduled for Big East play last year.

Georgetown lost a few points in the averages with two McD games, but overall, there's some serious catching up needed on attendance.

NCAA Rank/Team/Avg. Home Attendance:

1. Syracuse (22,978)
4. Louisville (18,746)
15. Connecticut (13,771)

21. Marquette (13,771)
27. Cincinnati (11,304)
36. Pittsburgh (10,564)

41. Notre Dame (10,229)
47. Providence (9,660)
55. DePaul (9,159)

58. West Virginia (8,510)
60. Villanova (8,260)
68. Seton Hall (7,890)

69. Georgetown (7,837)
77. Rutgers (6,808)
86. St. John's (6,244)
NR. South Florida (3,220)

www.ncaa.org/stats/m_basketball/attendance/2005_basketball_attend.pdf

[Frank Black]

Oh pish posh. Another two thousand per game and we'll be fine.

[DFW HOYA]

Pish-posh? Sounds like the return of Old Man Frank Black... or T. Herman Zweibel.

Taking out the McD games, Georgetown moves from 13th to 9th, but if Marquette can average that many, so can Georgetown.

[jerseyhoya34]

I wonder if SF or THB can adjust the numbers to give us an MCI-only average, as I think we'd jump ahead of at least two NBE teams in this list if we made that adjustment. We also lost considerable ground most likely with the MCI game in the NIT.

[DFW HOYA]

Removing the two McD games, the average is 8,564, just ahead of West Virginia.

[Frank Black]

See, no problemo. When word gets out about this team, we'll have more people coming to our games than Manchester United. I'll pass out flyers.

[StPetersburgHoya (Inactive)]

I agree with Mr. Black here - we don't need to worry about attendance figures for next year if the team improves. It is too much to ask for but I really wish that we could view the growth in attendance from the Temple game to the final home games. I am also more confident now than I was a year ago that if the program puts an attractive and fun brand of basketball on the court that the AD's office will be prepared to support the program by advertising the games in the DC area.

[DFW HOYA]

Here's why attendance is of concern.

The hard fact is that this school has collected a total of one NCAA men's basketball bid in the last eight years. Other than Rutgers, no other current Big East school has as few. NCAA revenue is one of three main revenue drivers for a program such as Georgetown. The others are a) home attendance, b) TV revenue, and c) university subsidy.

Let's take the last one of those out of the equation--it's not going up. TV revenue is a factor of attractive home games for networks, which does not appear to be the case to date in 2005-06 with the majority of non-conference games (Michigam, Illinois, in-season tournaments, etc.) being on the road. The Big East will continue to focus on 3-4 schools to give ESPN the best available matchups, and Georgetown is still not in that group. Expect to see a lot of Louisville, Syracuse, UConn, Cincinnati, and maybe West Virginia next year on the network games.

That's why it's essential that home attendance gets bumped up to a goal of 10,000 per game. 2004-05's average (with the McD games taken out) was within 1% of the overall average of attendance since MCI Center opened. It's the law of unintended consequences that MCI was going to be so much more convenient that Landover was...except the suburban audience simply doesn't drive downtown on weeknights anymore and not even to the noon games as they once did. (The game that drew the largest crowd of the season was a 4:00 pm start.)

If the program needs more money to retain coaches when other teams inevitably start to call, to expand recruiting, or to offer better guarantees for December games to teams other than the MEAC, home attendance (and better non-conference opponents) drives that train.

People have a lot of competition for their spare time and assuming that people will naturally show up just because it's a good team is not a strategy. Getting out to the basketball audience (not just existing season ticket holders) this summer is necessary to move this forward.

[GIGAFAN99]

We may not like this idea but the best way to boost attendance is to get the national media all over Jeff Green. Now that might not happen but there is one constant with high attendance in Georgetown history and that's having an exciting player on the floor.

Example: 1987 29-5, Elite Eight, #4 in the nation
Attendance: 8717

Reggie, we love you but ask non-Hoya fans to name a Hoya and it won't be you. Despite the success of this team, it didn't create the clamor of others even though we were just two years off a Final Four.

But two years later...
1989 29-5, Elite Eight, #2 in the nation
Attendance: 12,387

Big attendance jump, but why? We all know why, the exciting players on that team made people want to watch. You turn on the TV and you can't miss seeing a 'Zo highlight. Smitty driving to the hole and scoring is a little easier on the eyes than driving to the hole, missing, and watching Perry Mcdonald get a putback.

The same is true throughout Hoya history. Team success gets students out but there are only so many students. People want to see exciting players and we have that in Jeff.

And if people come to see Jeff, they'll see Brandon throw it down and Roy swat one flatfooted into the fourth row.

And if they see that, they'll come back. So let's get the word out on Jeff. That's how we get people in the seats.

[RBHoya]

Marketing exciting stars like Jeff also leads to our games getting put on tv, and our games getting put on tv leads to more fans. More fans leads to more money, which hopefully leads to us having better coaches, facilities, etc. which hopefully leads to better recruits, and the cycle just perpetuates. Is this safe to say? I've been interested in getting more fans to the game because I think it makes for a better atmosphere for the team and a more fun atmosphere for everyone, but theres definitly bigger reaons to get more fans.


Hopefully, the NBA has a lockout this coming year, and hockey stays locked-out as well (even if hockey comes back, does ANYONE still care?). That way, college hoops will undoubtedly be the biggest game in town from January to March, and we'd be getting most of the media attention. We'd only have to contend with the Terps and GW for media exposure, and I think thats a very winable battle for us. If we're successful on the court, we oughta get some attention and hopefully get some people out to the games.


Anyone else have any ideas as to the best way to get fans out to games? The only major factor I can think of is game time... The West Virginia game at 4 PM on a saturday was ideal I thought, as opposed to Sundays at noon while the NFL is still going (though the NFL maybe playing on Saturday AND Sunday some of those weeks).