Hoyas Average Attendance Record in Reach!

[PDRHoya99]

Feb 1, 2008 19:05:23 GMT -5 SFHoya99 said:

Speaking of attendance, we're averaging 12,140 a game right now with six BE home games left (including the McD game). 13,000 would be an all time high.

The good news is that we're basically averaging a sellout for the three home games we've had. The bad news is that it was Cuse, ND, and UConn. Those tend to sell out or close.

I think Louisville might and maybe Villanova, but Seton Hall? S. Florida? Cincy? SJU?

We've only had ten home games, so to reach 13k average we need to average 14,434. We've had an 8k minimum at MCI, more or less, and versus even legit teams it has been 11k or 12k. But USF, Seton Hall, Cincy?

Home draws for these teams last year:

Villanova: 12k
Cincinnati: 13k

Now, granted, attendance has been up across the board, but it might be close.

Following up on this post from the SH pregame thread, with 14,528 at that game we're up to an average of 12,357 on the year. Seems like that 13k average is very much within reach, and anything more than 12,637 breaks the record from 88-89. We need to average 13,256 vs. USF, Nova, UC, Johnies and Louisville to set a record.

No more students coming disguised as empty seats, lets pack the booth!

[bubbrubbhoya]

St. John's at 9pm on Wednesday? I'm pretty sure it will be like halloween for those disguised as empty seats that night. Better capitalize on the 'Nova and 'Ville games, with some help from the Cinci game.

[Grandpa]

Calling HoyaMarketing - I really think this (i.e., the possibility of breaking the attendance record) is as great promotional / advertising opportunity to really push in "The Hoya" and "The G'town Voice - while the die-hards out there will undoubtedly show-up to the L'ville and 'Nova games, its going to take a little bit of encouragement for St. Johns and perhaps Cincy (maybe a little too late to try to rally students for USF). In any event, is there any way that some special give-away or contests could be used to help get some more student bodies in the seats at Phone Booth. Maybe a mid-season "fill the Phone Booth" promotion! Let's break and set a new record (which we can promptly aim to beat next season!)

[PDRHoya99]

Feb 4, 2008 16:28:45 GMT -5 bubbrubbhoya said:

St. John's at 9pm on Wednesday? I'm pretty sure it will be like halloween for those disguised as empty seats that night. Better capitalize on the 'Nova and 'Ville games, with some help from the Cinci game.

That's appropriate, because St. Johns is likely to be pretending they are a division I basketball team as well.

The sad part is, even if we set an attendance record it will barely crack the top 25 amongst NCAA programs.

[StPetersburgHoya (Inactive)]

USF and St. John's are really going to hurt this total unless we come up with a marketing gimmick like "bring 4 friends, get $100."

[SFHoya99]

It's not sad if we "only" hit the Top 25, considering how many of those programs have:

1. 2-5x our student base
2. 2-5x our alumni base
3. Immeasureably more alumni in area
4. Lack of other local entertainment options

[TBird41]

Do this statistics only include people who actually attend the game, or is it tickets purchased? Basically, does it matter for these stats if season ticket holders show up?

[PDRHoya99]

Feb 4, 2008 17:02:31 GMT -5 TBird41 said:

Do this statistics only include people who actually attend the game, or is it tickets purchased? Basically, does it matter for these stats if season ticket holders show up?

The numbers I was using were based on the box scores at Yahoo. I'm not sure if that references paid attendance or actual attendance.

[HoyaChris]

The numbers are for paid attendance, not actual attendance.

[TBird41]

Feb 4, 2008 17:06:25 GMT -5 HoyaChris said:

The numbers are for paid attendance, not actual attendance.

Then we have a much better chance, even with the USF/St. John's game, seeing as how 3000 students already paid for those tickets (and a few thousand alumni as well)

[PDRHoya99]

Feb 4, 2008 16:59:39 GMT -5 SFHoya99 said:

It's not sad if we "only" hit the Top 25, considering how many of those programs have:

1. 2-5x our student base
2. 2-5x our alumni base
3. Immeasureably more alumni in area
4. Lack of other local entertainment options

www.ncaa.org/stats/m_basketball/attendance/top25.pdf

Yes, other places have advantages, but we're unlikely to match Marquette, another similarly sized Jesuit school, playing in a pro arena, in a city that also has professional winter sports. Knock Milwaukee all you want, but I fail to see many entertainment opportunities in DC much better than a brewery tour.

[HeartAttackHoya]

Feb 4, 2008 16:59:39 GMT -5 SFHoya99 said:

It's not sad if we "only" hit the Top 25, considering how many of those programs have:

1. 2-5x our student base
2. 2-5x our alumni base
3. Immeasureably more alumni in area
4. Lack of other local entertainment options

i couldnt agree more. comparing our attendance to say North Carolina, Kentucky or the Kansas' of college basektball is not a proper indication of fan loyalty. not to mention:

5. no on campus arena

[SFHoya99]

Not saying we're the best, but pathetic seems like a strong term.

[PDRHoya99]

Feb 4, 2008 17:39:58 GMT -5 SFHoya99 said:

Not saying we're the best, but pathetic seems like a strong term.

Who used the term pathetic?

[SFHoya99]

Sad, pathetic... whatever. Sad still seems strong for being Top 25 in attendance for anything.

[PDRHoya99]

Feb 4, 2008 17:28:04 GMT -5 HeartAttackHoya said:

Feb 4, 2008 16:59:39 GMT -5 SFHoya99 said:

It's not sad if we "only" hit the Top 25, considering how many of those programs have:

1. 2-5x our student base
2. 2-5x our alumni base
3. Immeasureably more alumni in area
4. Lack of other local entertainment options

i couldnt agree more. comparing our attendance to say North Carolina, Kentucky or the Kansas' of college basektball is not a proper indication of fan loyalty. not to mention:

5. no on campus arena

I agree, it's great that we're setting a record. However looking at your list and comparing to the gold:

1. 2-5x our student base - Nope, they're practically the same.

2. 2-5x our alumni base - Presumably also similar tho difficult to measure

3. Immeasureably more alumni in area - Again, difficult to measure, but since they draw from all over the midwest, I'm guessing they have a similar alumni exodus to Chicago as we do to NYC.

4. Lack of other local entertainment options - I've already spoken of the joys of a good brewery tour.

5. no on campus arena - I could be wrong but I believe most of their games are played downtown at the Bradely Center

So playing in a very similar situation against teams that are centainly not historical rivals they will likely outdraw us this year, and I think that is kinda sad.

[PDRHoya99]

Feb 4, 2008 17:55:01 GMT -5 SFHoya99 said:

Sad, pathetic... whatever. Sad still seems strong for being Top 25 in attendance for anything.

I'd say pathetic is a bit more pejorative a word than just sad, but we're just arguing semantics at that point. Regarless, wouldn't you agree that Patriots fans are a touch sad today despite having the best single season W-L record in their franchise history? If we're not drawing more than 13k this year, when we went to the final four a year earlier and returned practically the entire team, we've effectively found our maximum attendance. Hopefully our contract with the booth isn't dependent on consistently drawing much more than this.

[vcjack]

Feb 4, 2008 18:02:36 GMT -5 PDRHoya99 said:

Feb 4, 2008 17:28:04 GMT -5 HeartAttackHoya said:

i couldnt agree more. comparing our attendance to say North Carolina, Kentucky or the Kansas' of college basektball is not a proper indication of fan loyalty. not to mention:

5. no on campus arena

I agree, it's great that we're setting a record. However looking at your list and comparing to the gold:

1. 2-5x our student base - Nope, they're practically the same.

2. 2-5x our alumni base - Presumably also similar tho difficult to measure

3. Immeasureably more alumni in area - Again, difficult to measure, but since they draw from all over the midwest, I'm guessing they have a similar alumni exodus to Chicago as we do to NYC.

4. Lack of other local entertainment options - I've already spoken of the joys of a good brewery tour.

5. no on campus arena - I could be wrong but I believe most of their games are played downtown at the Bradely Center

So playing in a very similar situation against teams that are centainly not historical rivals they will likely outdraw us this year, and I think that is kinda sad.

I understand your points but its a hell of a lot easier to get from Chicago to Milwauke than it is to get from New York to Washington. A lot of Chicago alumni will take a short 2-3 hour drive to get to a big game like ND, Louisville (tonight), Wisconsin, DePaul (and us, a lot of Flu fans have Georgetown circled their calenders)

Plus Milwauke doesn't have the same transient nature that Washington has. We kinda psuedo compete with WG and UMCP for attention but in reality the schools with the most alumni in the area are schools like Georgia, Penn State and Texas. I was in Chipotle a couple of hours ago and I sat next to a group of Oregon alumns were discussing how to get tickets in the event that they get the Booth for the first round games. You're not going to randomly run into Oregon alumns/fans in Milwauke.

[PDRHoya99]

Feb 4, 2008 18:15:32 GMT -5 vcjack said:

I understand your points but its a hell of a lot easier to get from Chicago to Milwauke than it is to get from New York to Washington. A lot of Chicago alumni will take a short 2-3 hour drive to get to a big game like ND, Louisville (tonight), Wisconsin, DePaul (and us, a lot of Flu fans have Georgetown circled their calenders)

Well, there's a Chinatown bus that's practically free, and multiple airlines running shuttles every hour, as well as amtrac, so I'm not buying that it's dramatically more difficult to get from Chicago to Milwaukee than NYC to DC. Yes it's a little further, but done at the right time of day that can be a 4 hour drive.

Plus Milwauke doesn't have the same transient nature that Washington has. We kinda psuedo compete with WG and UMCP for attention but in reality the schools with the most alumni in the area are schools like Georgia, Penn State and Texas. I was in Chipotle a couple of hours ago and I sat next to a group of Oregon alumns were discussing how to get tickets in the event that they get the Booth for the first round games. You're not going to randomly run into Oregon alumns/fans in Milwauke.

I'm not sure if this is a point for or against us. Yes, the potential random fans of the hoyas are transient, but do you think you're drawing a lot of opposing Seton Hall fans to a game in Wisconsin? (MU outdrew us in our games against them). How about Villanova, South Florida, Syracuse, or Connecticut? I'm thinking the transient nature of the DC population (which I think is a little overblown to begin with -- there are plenty of lifelong Washingtonians) actually helps our attendance more than it hurts us. Very few people decide to take weekend trips to see beautiful Milwaukee, especially in the months of December, January and February when most of the games are played. However as many other threads can attest, we get a decent chunk of tickets sold to opposing fans who call DC home.

[vcjack]

"Well, there's a Chinatown bus that's practically free, and multiple airlines running shuttles every hour, as well as amtrac, so I'm not buying that it's dramatically more difficult to get from Chicago to Milwaukee than NYC to DC. Yes it's a little further, but done at the right time of day that can be a 4 hour drive."

That's true but driving up I-94 in your own car is dramatically cheaper than a NY-DC flight or Amtrac ride, Chinatown is cheaper but very sketchy