Average attendace?

[SFHoya99]

thestig said:

jack said:

You mean all of Milwaukee was unwilling to commute to Rosemont to spend Valentine's Day with their sweetheart, Lord Crean?

Most people in Milwaukee don't even know who Tom Crean is. Other than when they go deep in the NCAA's, Marquette basketball is pretty irrelevant in Milwaukee.

And most people in most cities don't know who the HC of the local basketball team is.

That said, the Milwaukee Metro Area has only 1.8MM people (Take out Balt and its closer to 5MM). Yet despite a pro basketball and baseball team and a highly popular pro football team nearby, Marquette still manages to draw 15,000 a game.

That's impressive. The DC-Balt-Nova area has over 8MM people. While we've got more sports options and more options period, it'd be nice to be drawing even close to half Marquette's percentage of available fans.

[DanMcQ]

sfhoya99 said:

And most people in most cities don't know who the HC of the local basketball team is.

That said, the Milwaukee Metro Area has only 1.8MM people (Take out Balt and its closer to 5MM). Yet despite a pro basketball and baseball team and a highly popular pro football team nearby, Marquette still manages to draw 15,000 a game.

That's impressive. The DC-Balt-Nova area has over 8MM people. While we've got more sports options and more options period, it'd be nice to be drawing even close to half Marquette's percentage of available fans.

You forget to mention that the only other distractions in Milwaukee are brandy, bratwurst, beer, and Friday night fish fries (not necessarily in that order). DC has a few additional things to compete for people's attention.

[PDRHoya99]

danmcq said:

You forget to mention that the only other distractions in Milwaukee are brandy, bratwurst, beer, and Friday night fish fries (not necessarily in that order). DC has a few additional things to compete for people's attention.

Georgetown draws 10k/game, thats 0.2% of the local population, whereas Marquette's 15k represents 1% of their local population. You mean to tell me that if we'd only raze the Smithsonians we'd be able to draw 50,000 people to a game?

Having lived in the midwest, east and west coasts, there seems to be generally more hometeam support from a non-alumni fan in the middle of this country, or at least outside of the big cities. I grew up going to Xavier games, despite the fact that neither of my parents went to school there. In Cincinnati HS football games regularly outdraw the hoyas. In general I don't think it's really a lack of things to do (all these mid-tier cities have pro sports, museums, concerts, restaurants, bars and most of the other entertainment options that are available in DC), but more the fact that the big cities residents are a little more disconnected. I can guarantee you that when Marquette is hot, it is the talk of every watercooler in the Milwaukee. I'm guessing the same can't be said for Georgetown.

[SFHoya99]

I did mention that ("more options period") and I still think it is impressive that Marquette draws 15k. Name me another private city school that draws as much.

[DanMcQ]

sfhoya99 said:

I did mention that ("more options period") and I still think it is impressive that Marquette draws 15k. Name me another private city school that draws as much.

MOO! ;D

...before any of you crack on my big city snobbery, I grew up in Milwaukee...

[paranoya]

sfhoya99 said:

I did mention that ("more options period") and I still think it is impressive that Marquette draws 15k. Name me another private city school that draws as much.

Syracuse if you want to count Syracuse as a city. It has a metro area pop. of about 750K according to Wikipedia and the 2000 census.

[SFHoya99]

paranoya said:

sfhoya99 said:

I did mention that ("more options period") and I still think it is impressive that Marquette draws 15k. Name me another private city school that draws as much.

Syracuse if you want to count Syracuse as a city. It has a metro area pop. of about 750K according to Wikipedia and the 2000 census.

I don't. Syracuse basketball is the #1 game in town, and there are no pro sports within easy driving distance. It is still somewhat impressive they can draw 30k, but there is nothing else to do -- much more so than Milwaukee.

[PDRHoya99]

How many private city schools even play in a building big enough to hold 15k/game? I'm guessing we're only talking about a handful of programs. That's pretty big for a college program, private or not.

[nebraskahoya]

SF,

I don't have the numbers for this year, but Creighton (small, private school located in Omaha -- population around 800,00) drew 14,000 per game last year and ranked 20th nationally in attendance. Atlhough I haven't been able to average out the figures for all their home games this year, I randomly checked a couple games (Illinois State, Drake, and Bradley), each of which drew about 14k to 16k. They play in the Qwest Center which holds 17k-18k.

[Jack]

Omaha, like Syracuse, does not have an NBA team. There are very few schools that meet the precise criteria of being private, playing in a gym big enough to average 15K fans, and being in truly large cities with NBA franchises. Off the top of my head, I can only think of:
Seton Hall
St. John's (maybe?)
Georgetown
Marquette
Villanova (not really- too many games at Pavillion)
Depaul

The other BCS-type private colleges in pro towns tend to play in much smaller gyms- e.g. BC, Stanford, Miami. Memphis is a state school in a pro town that plays in front of big crowds, as is UCLA. Doesn't take away from what Marquette does, but it is a pretty small sample size when you look at it more closely.

[PDRHoya99]

jack said:

Omaha, like Syracuse, does not have an NBA team. There are very few schools that meet the precise criteria of being private, playing in a gym big enough to average 15K fans, and being in truly large cities with NBA franchises. Off the top of my head, I can only think of:
Seton Hall
St. John's (maybe?)
Georgetown
Marquette
Villanova (not really- too many games at Pavillion)
Depaul

The other BCS-type private colleges in pro towns tend to play in much smaller gyms- e.g. BC, Stanford, Miami. Memphis is a state school in a pro town that plays in front of big crowds, as is UCLA. Doesn't take away from what Marquette does, but it is a pretty small sample size when you look at it more closely.

I just ran through the same thing, and even eliminating the private part it's still hard to get that many colleges consistently playing in gyms with 15k capacity.

UCLA and USC are both well shy (Pauley is only around 12k I think). Nova doesn't count, since the average won't be particularly high after taking into account their pavilion games.

Really makes you realize how nice that 10k capacity on campus arena would be, since it would legitimately become a tough ticket.

[The Stig]

sfhoya99 said:

thestig said:

Most people in Milwaukee don't even know who Tom Crean is. Other than when they go deep in the NCAA's, Marquette basketball is pretty irrelevant in Milwaukee.

And most people in most cities don't know who the HC of the local basketball team is.

That said, the Milwaukee Metro Area has only 1.8MM people (Take out Balt and its closer to 5MM). Yet despite a pro basketball and baseball team and a highly popular pro football team nearby, Marquette still manages to draw 15,000 a game.

That's impressive. The DC-Balt-Nova area has over 8MM people. While we've got more sports options and more options period, it'd be nice to be drawing even close to half Marquette's percentage of available fans.

The only sport that Marquette really overlaps with is the Bucks. The Brewers are a different season, and getting tickets to a Packers game is virtually impossible. So if you want to go to a sporting event in Milwaukee in the winter, the Bucks and Marquette are pretty much your only option.

I think a bigger factor though is the size of the Marquette alumni base in Milwaukee. A lot of Marquette students are from the Milwaukee area, and after they graduate a lot of them stick around the city. Compare that to Georgetown alumns, who scatter all over the world after they graduate. I'd be willing to bet that there are a lot more Marquette alumns in Milwaukee than there are Georgetown alumns in Washington, DC. That helps fill up the Bradley Center.

Also, DC has a pretty high rate of turnover among the population (especially the types who can afford to go to basketball games on a regular basis). That makes it hard to build up a base of support in the local community. You get somebody hooked on Hoya basketball, but within a year or so they move away and are replaced by somebody who doesn't know who John Thompson is. Milwaukee's very different in that respect, as people tend to stay in town for a lot longer.

Still, while I was growing up in Milwaukee I always got the sense that Marquette basketball was pretty irrelevant. My friends and I were pretty sports-crazy, but the Brewers, Bucks, Packers and Badgers (football) were the only local teams that were relevant. We went to games for all those teams (plus a bunch of Admirals hockey games), but I never even considered going to a Marquette game. They really only got attention when they went deep in the NCAA's.

[SFHoya99]

One, in season sports aren't the only thing to consider. Most people have to budget for entertainment, and Marquette having as many season tix as they have isn't a timing decision for most, I don't think.

Two, regardless of the buzz you remember growing up in Milwaukee, Marquette draws extremely well for its situation. Do you find it surprising that Football, CFB, Baseball and the NBA were more important to you? Guess what, they are more important to the nation as a whole, as well, if tv ratings are to be believed. That doesn't mean that Marquette isn't impressive in drawing 15k.

You did a good job of detailing Georgetown's attendance struggles; that doesn't deny the fact that Marquette does better than most urban schools -- SJU, Seton Hall, Nova, DePaul, Georgetown, UCLA, USC, etc. and did better even when in CUSA (you could also compare to USF, SDSU, the Big Five, GW, etc).

[PDRHoya99]

sfhoya99 said:

You did a good job of detailing Georgetown's attendance struggles; that doesn't deny the fact that Marquette does better than most urban schools -- SJU, Seton Hall, Nova, DePaul, Georgetown, UCLA, USC, etc. and did better even when in CUSA (you could also compare to USF, SDSU, the Big Five, GW, etc).

I'm not sure that's exactly fair. They could probably fill a 20k seat Pauley Pavilion, it just doesn't happen to be that big. I'm sure the same would apply to a number of larger state schools. However, I'm not buying a lack of DC alumni as an excuse for Georgetown. According to the alumni website, here are the number of individuals by class living in Metro DC:

1997 - 986
1998 - 993
1999 - 1046
2000 - 1182
2001 - 1062
2002 - 1133
2003 - 1307
2004 - 1482
2005 - 1500+
2006 - 1500+

The search doesn't allow more than 1500 results, so the last two classes are likely higher. So that means there are over 12,000 alumni just from the classes of the past decade living in and around the district. Yes, they drop off the further they get from their graduation, but that's not altogether surprising, and I'm guessing is true for almost any university. Most alums get their first job with a company from the area. As their career continues, their options expand to more locales.

However, my experience was that an extremely small percentage of the recent alumni base living in DC was a young alumni ticket holder. The last time I had season tickets was 2003 (also the last time I lived in the DC area). I would generously estimate there were around 50 Young Alumni season ticket holders at the time. Assuming these numbers weren't significantly different (and if anything they were higher for the classes of 2002-1998), then those 5 classes had less than 1% of the DC resident alumni buying season tickets. I'm sure those numbers have improved since then, due to the rebirth of the team, but I would be willing to guess that it still is a single digit percentage. I don't think it's a lack of alumni in the district, I think it's still a lack of alumni interest. Perhaps somebody who currently sits in the YA section can tell me I'm wrong, but if we were to merely sell to half of the alumni from the last 5 classes, along with getting half of the undergraduate population to attend we would average 7000 attendees. That's before a single big ticket donors get their seats, or anyone from the community that isn't associated with the school (who currently make up at least half of our attendance).

[HoyaSinceBirth]

Well you also have to take into account that 1. Not everyone who stays in the area are basketball fans. you have to take into account that during the years posted we weren't very good for a majority of them.

[The Stig]

That's actually indicative of my point. The alumns stay in the area for a few years, then head off, never to go to another Hoyas home game in their life.

Meanwhile, a lot of Marquette alumns stay in Milwaukee for their whole lives, so those who are basketball fans go to games for 30+ years after they graduate. Georgetown alumns just don't stick around DC for that long. We've got better things to do.

All in all though I do have to tip my hat to Marquette for getting that many people to their games despite the complete lack of interest in the team from the surrounding community. They must do a fantastic job at getting their own people (students and alumns of all ages) out to games, and I'm sure we could learn a thing or two from them.

[FormerHoya]

Stig, you don't give a timeframe for when you grew up in Milwaukee. Growing up, for a long time the only college team that I rooted for was the Warriors [parents both alums, our family vacations were to the Holidome in Milwaukee], but I remember being able to get tickets for any game [sometimes DePaul was tough] at any time.

What they have done lately, and the way that Crean has embraced and engaged that fanbase is pretty amazing.

I'm still shocked that Georgetown is outdrawn by DePaul. The stadium's a dump and not easy to get to from their "campus".

[Fan Of The Game]

jack said:

Omaha, like Syracuse, does not have an NBA team. There are very few schools that meet the precise criteria of being private, playing in a gym big enough to average 15K fans, and being in truly large cities with NBA franchises. Off the top of my head, I can only think of:
Seton Hall
St. John's (maybe?)
Georgetown
Marquette
Villanova (not really- too many games at Pavillion)
Depaul

The other BCS-type private colleges in pro towns tend to play in much smaller gyms- e.g. BC, Stanford, Miami. Memphis is a state school in a pro town that plays in front of big crowds, as is UCLA. Doesn't take away from what Marquette does, but it is a pretty small sample size when you look at it more closely.

I don't know if you'd count BYU...their arena holds 20K-plus, but they're not in Salt Lake City. It's Utah though...that should still count.

[The Stig]

I'm an undergrad at GU, and I lived in Milwaukee until I came here, so I was in Brew City in the Crean era. I still can't remember hearing much about him while I was there. I obviously knew who he was since I was a sports fan, but his name certainly wasn't on everybody's lips. Maybe things have changed since Marquette joined the Big East (happened after I left), but to be honest that attendance number absolutely shocks me.

[metaphor]

I am glad we are over 11500 at Verizon. Unfortunately, until they redesign and expand McDonough, the overall totals will always lag. Imagine if you could play Towson State at McDonough, you would draw 6 k easily and not lose any money b/c you have to have at least 8 k at Verizon to break even.