Attendance in the Big Sky

[jon]

Hi all,

I wrote a post asking, Does the Big Sky have an attendance problem?

Weber St. is the only school in the BSC that finished in the top 100 for average attendance, and the Big Sky as a whole finished 20th out of 31 conferences in attendance, partially boosted by Weber St's success. So I was wondering what you guys thought? Does the Big Sky have an attendance problem that they need to do something about to try and change? Or is it simply a fact of life of being a mid-major conference? Would love to hear your thoughts on this...

 

[oldrunner]

It doesn't help a lot when 4 of your member's gyms only seat 300 people. I'm exagerating, but not by much. On top of that, some of our other members, who used to draw better, have had long mediocre stretches, and fans have turned away. I think attendance is a problem nation wide.

At Weber State, our attendance has been going up because we have been winning for a while and play a fun brand of basketball. It attracts better players and more fans. Those things feed off of themselves and as long as you can keep it going, you have a good thing. A few more years like we have been having and we may be back to the glory days of sellouts and high average attendance. I think it will happen, as long as we can keep our coaching staff. It probably won't hurt if the NBA has a lockout that lasts a while. We might get some fans back who left when we were struggling and the Jazz were doing well.

 

[WILDCAT]

Hi all,

I wrote a post asking, Does the Big Sky have an attendance problem?

Weber St. is the only school in the BSC that finished in the top 100 for average attendance, and the Big Sky as a whole finished 20th out of 31 conferences in attendance, partially boosted by Weber St's success. So I was wondering what you guys thought? Does the Big Sky have an attendance problem that they need to do something about to try and change? Or is it simply a fact of life of being a mid-major conference? Would love to hear your thoughts on this...

The main reason is we are a small conference in a big conference world.

Also it doesnt help that Weber is the only school in the sky that continuously has success.

 

[hawkssb04]

I think small venues are definitely part of the problem. Not so much with Weber State or Montana, but some of the other schools; such as Northern Colorado, Portland State, Eastern Washington and Sac State have very small venues.

I'm sure attendance would see an overall boost at most of those schools if they could accomodate it.

 

[jon]

I think small venues are definitely part of the problem. Not so much with Weber State or Montana, but some of the other schools; such as Northern Colorado, Portland State, Eastern Washington and Sac State have very small venues.

I'm sure attendance would see an overall boost at most of those schools if they could accomodate it.

I agree somewhat. There is no doubt that schools like NAU, UNC, PSU, and Sac are all playing in small arenas... but they are not even really coming all that close to selling out those arenas (on an average basis) either...

I think you guys are right with the varying degrees of success... that could definitely play into it. For teams like Idaho St and Sacramento St it has to be hard to build up excitement for the program. I think the scheduling too has a big affect (in that a big portion of the Big Sky teams aren't getting ANYONE to play them at home), but that is a tough fix. I suggested something like a Big Sky/Summit matchup, but have no idea how feasible something like that would be.

Thanks everyone for responses!

 

[Weber Pirate]

According to the stats that I saw, the Big Sky average attendance dropped by about 115 people per game last year. Sac St. had the worst attendance and NAU was not far behind. Neither school averaged 800 per game. That is PATHETIC!!!! hno:

 

[heyoh22]

One thing to note in comparing conference attendance year to year, NAU was playing in the Rolle Activity Center this season as the Skydome was being renovated. Some high school gyms have more seating than the Rolle. Hopefully when they get in the dome and ultimately in a renovated fieldhouse that should hold 4500 or so for hoops, maybe attendance will increase in Flagstaff.

 

[weberwildcat]

Attendance in college basketball in general are smaller crowds it seems like than they used to be. At least in our state. I do not think NAU for example even averaged more than 1,000 even when playing in their usual arena. Sac though even if they average a sell out all season is barely over 1,000.

 

[n.ogdencat]

PSU and SAC both play in gyms that are embarrassing for DI schools. Yes, PSU does an adequate job filling their gym, but seriously, how hard is it to get 2K to a game? PSU has had some fairly talented and good teams throughout the past decade and should make some noise this year, and yet, they still can't fill out their place for every game. Sad... SAC is beyond embarrassing. I went to the nest a couple of seasons ago and I couldn't stop laughing. There are church gyms that are bigger. Westminster's (NAIA school) court is far nicer than Sac's.

UND and SUU's admittance into the Sky is good on a lot of accounts, but one area that really excites me is their facilities. I don't know much about UND, but I have seen some pictures of their facilities and I'm fairly impressed. Far better than the last Big Sky additions. As for SUU's...YES, they are very nice. The Centrum is a legit college stadium. Posters, if you haven't before, you need to visit Cedar and catch a game in their gym. Definitely nice.

Personally, the nicest gyms in the conference are:
1. Weber State (Seriously...it is the Dee, in my opinion, it is the best facility in the state of Utah too).
2. Montana (Dahlberg...is a great facility)
3. Southern Utah (Great facility holds 6K)
4. Eastern Washington (Reese court is a nice facility)
5. Montana State (They have rodeos there, but decent place to catch a game. Holds over 6K)
6. North Dakota (nice facility, but only seats 3200)
7. Idaho State (I really like the new floor, and it does seat 8K, but it is still in the LOLT)
8. Northern Arizona (same issue as the LOLT, but without the new floor and not as many seats)
9. Nortern Colorado (The Butt-crock is a glorified High School gym)
10. Portland State (Stott is hilarious!! The visiting locker rooms are attached to the university pool!!)
11. Sacramento State (YIKES...thats all I can say)

I'm calling it now, but I think Weber's attendance average for basketball will be over 7500 this season. If the students come out and really participate I'm thinking that average could climb as high as 8K.

 

[heyoh22]

Was at Sac for the Weber game last season. I heard that if the Kings should happen to vacate the Sac area, that Sac State could use the Arco arena. I was skeptical, as it would add a huge cost to the university, be away from campus and also could look extremely empty if you are drawing 1500 to the games in that big arena.

 

[weberwildcat]

i love stats. i will go pull some stats to see if we can see what attendance looks like nationally and how they compare to wsu other than we are in the 20th ranked conference. it will be interesting to see how many schools have small gyms, not even arenas and how few stadiums are bigger than the Dee.

ill try and post my data today or tomorrow.


i think ncaa bball just doesnt get the crowds it used to. but you really cant expect the big sky attendance to increase much overall when the top 3 schools' average is higher than the bottom half of the league's stadium capacities.

 

[jon]

PSU and SAC both play in gyms that are embarrassing for DI schools. Yes, PSU does an adequate job filling their gym, but seriously, how hard is it to get 2K to a game? PSU has had some fairly talented and good teams throughout the past decade and should make some noise this year, and yet, they still can't fill out their place for every game. Sad... SAC is beyond embarrassing. I went to the nest a couple of seasons ago and I couldn't stop laughing. There are church gyms that are bigger. Westminster's (NAIA school) court is far nicer than Sac's.

UND and SUU's admittance into the Sky is good on a lot of accounts, but one area that really excites me is their facilities. I don't know much about UND, but I have seen some pictures of their facilities and I'm fairly impressed. Far better than the last Big Sky additions. As for SUU's...YES, they are very nice. The Centrum is a legit college stadium. Posters, if you haven't before, you need to visit Cedar and catch a game in their gym. Definitely nice.

Personally, the nicest gyms in the conference are:
1. Weber State (Seriously...it is the Dee, in my opinion, it is the best facility in the state of Utah too).
2. Montana (Dahlberg...is a great facility)
3. Southern Utah (Great facility holds 6K)
4. Eastern Washington (Reese court is a nice facility)
5. Montana State (They have rodeos there, but decent place to catch a game. Holds over 6K)
6. North Dakota (nice facility, but only seats 3200)
7. Idaho State (I really like the new floor, and it does seat 8K, but it is still in the LOLT)
8. Northern Arizona (same issue as the LOLT, but without the new floor and not as many seats)
9. Nortern Colorado (The Butt-crock is a glorified High School gym)
10. Portland State (Stott is hilarious!! The visiting locker rooms are attached to the university pool!!)
11. Sacramento State (YIKES...thats all I can say)

I'm calling it now, but I think Weber's attendance average for basketball will be over 7500 this season. If the students come out and really participate I'm thinking that average could climb as high as 8K.

I've been to UND's so I can comment a bit... it is a nice facility, I think especially for this level. Certainly there are better ones around (if only because it only 3200-3300), but it is a quality arena. It is right next to the Ralph Engelstad Arena, which is arguably the nicest hockey arena in America (college or pros), and UND has been known to use that arena for big games from time to time. The Ralph is a $110 million facility that can seat 11K plus.

 

[EWURanger]

I think small venues are definitely part of the problem. Not so much with Weber State or Montana, but some of the other schools; such as Northern Colorado, Portland State, Eastern Washington and Sac State have very small venues.

I'm sure attendance would see an overall boost at most of those schools if they could accomodate it.

Don't compare Reese Court with those other venues you mentioned. Reese Court is a 6,000 seat arena, those others you mentioned are only a fraction of that and nowhere near as nice. :twocents:

 

[WILDCAT]

I think small venues are definitely part of the problem. Not so much with Weber State or Montana, but some of the other schools; such as Northern Colorado, Portland State, Eastern Washington and Sac State have very small venues.

I'm sure attendance would see an overall boost at most of those schools if they could accomodate it.

Don't compare Reese Court with those other venues you mentioned. Reese Court is a 6,000 seat arena, those others you mentioned are only a fraction of that and nowhere near as nice. :twocents:

Reese should not be in the same sentence as the others mentioned, Reese is actually a great basketball venue, and when the Eagles were doing great a couple years ago, Reese would get packed and would get pretty loud. Reese is heads and shoulders better than B-H, The Nest and The Stott.

What would be sweet is if EWU could take out them bleachers and replace them with seats.