New Look for UNI

[unipanther99]

While I would like the majority of our arenas over 9-10k in capacity, for some schools, it just wouldn't make much sense.

Northern Iowa had their best season in their school's history last year. I'm curious to know how many sellouts they had? I also would think season ticket totals would be higher this year thanks to last year's success. Also, I'd expect the average attendance to rise a bit from last year.

If UNI can't draw 7,000 a game in a season they had like last year's, then they never will IMO.

Working backwards, below I've listed attendance at the McLeod last year. A sellout is anything over 6500.

Sat. 2/27/10 vs. Illinois State: 7332
Fri. 2/19/10 vs. Old Dominion: 7031
Tue. 2/16/10 vs. Creighton: 5440
Sat. 2/06/10 vs. Southern Illinois: 6839
Wed. 2/03/10 vs. Wichita State: 6723
Wed. 1/27/10 vs. Drake: 6069
Sat. 1/16/10 vs. Indiana State: 6778
Tue. 1/12/10 vs. Bradley: 4892
Sun. 1/03/10 vs. Missouri St.: 4666
Fri. 1/01/10 vs. Evansville: 4450
Wed. 12/23/09 vs. Wyoming: 3102
Sat. 12/12/09 vs. Sienna: 5096
Tue. 12/08/09 vs. Iowa: 6480
Sat. 11/28/09 vs. Northern Illinois: 4083

So the answer to your question is 5 sellouts last year.

UNI finished 6th for attendance the MVC last year, I'm sure that was our highest finish ever. Could it be better, sure. But at the same time UNI is light years ahead of where we were 10 years ago.

[WSUbballer]

Those our good numbers 99 for your fanbase. I'm glad some fans finally "got it" toward the end of the year.

It still amazes me though that you couldn't draw close to 7k on the majority of nights with the team, record, and rankings you had. What's even more shocking is your closest opponents and what some consider as your "rivals", Drake, Creighton, and Iowa were all well short of 7k.

[Khan4Cats]

To be fair baller, Iowa wasn't drawing fans to their games either last year.

And the conference was nice enough to give us games against our two closest regional teams in the middle of the week (Tue and Wed).

When we are trying to draw fans from Des Moines (2 hours) and Cedar Rapids (1 hour) in the middle of winter, they're not going to make that kind of trip on weeknights, unfortunately. I wish we could fill our arena with the 100,000 from Waterloo/Cedar Falls, but Waterloo doesn't hardly recognize UNI's existence, so lop off the 70,000 fans to draw from there.

What really sucks is that we can't consistently get 500 students to the games, until we can do that, our attendance will fluctuate wildly.

But give our fans some credit, they knew the importance of the Wichita State game last year and showed up mid-week for that. And no, it was not all WSU fans making the trip...

[valleychamp]

The Iowa game last year was on a weeknight during an absolutely terrible blizzard. I was shocked to see as many people there as there were.

[WSUbballer]

To be fair baller, Iowa wasn't drawing fans to their games either last year.

And the conference was nice enough to give us games against our two closest regional teams in the middle of the week (Tue and Wed).

When we are trying to draw fans from Des Moines (2 hours) and Cedar Rapids (1 hour) in the middle of winter, they're not going to make that kind of trip on weeknights, unfortunately. I wish we could fill our arena with the 100,000 from Waterloo/Cedar Falls, but Waterloo doesn't hardly recognize UNI's existence, so lop off the 70,000 fans to draw from there.

What really sucks is that we can't consistently get 500 students to the games, until we can do that, our attendance will fluctuate wildly.

But give our fans some credit, they knew the importance of the Wichita State game last year and showed up mid-week for that. And no, it was not all WSU fans making the trip...

All fair points Khan and yes those details do make a difference.

And of course people show up for WSU. Everybody circles that game on their calendars..

[snoopj]

UNI finished 6th for attendance the MVC last year, I'm sure that was our highest finish ever. Could it be better, sure. But at the same time UNI is light years ahead of where we were 10 years ago.

That it is. I can attest to that. I remember being in the Dome back in 1995-2000 seasons where you'd be lucky to get 900 at the game. Also, I vaguely remember not seeing a whole lot of UNI fans down in St. Louis the two years I got all session passes.

I still remember a game back in 1995 against Tulsa that was over the holiday break. I think I was amongst 500 others in the Dome. That game felt really small in that building. Of course, due to holiday break the band was non-existent and the cheerleaders were nowhere to be found. It was the quietest game of basketball I've ever been to. In fact, I think more noise was made during my finals a few weeks before than was made at that game.

[MoValley John]

UNI finished 6th for attendance the MVC last year, I'm sure that was our highest finish ever. Could it be better, sure. But at the same time UNI is light years ahead of where we were 10 years ago.

That it is. I can attest to that. I remember being in the Dome back in 1995-2000 seasons where you'd be lucky to get 900 at the game. Also, I vaguely remember not seeing a whole lot of UNI fans down in St. Louis the two years I got all session passes.

I still remember a game back in 1995 against Tulsa that was over the holiday break. I think I was amongst 500 others in the Dome. That game felt really small in that building. Of course, due to holiday break the band was non-existent and the cheerleaders were nowhere to be found. It was the quietest game of basketball I've ever been to. In fact, I think more noise was made during my finals a few weeks before than was made at that game.

I don't know what to make of this. Are you cheerleading the fact that the two time defending Missouri Valley Champions only finished sixth in attendance or that a mere 15 years ago, more people attended the local high school basketball games? EIther way it just paints the UNI fanbase as sad and pathetic.

[beatingrillz]

If the Mcleod holds 7,018 seats as it list it does how do you consider 6500 a sell out seems to me there was another 500 seats before you get to standing room.

[MoValley John]

If the Mcleod holds 7,018 seats as it list it does how do you consider 6500 a sell out seems to me there was another 500 seats before you get to standing room.

The 6,500 is before they calculate the value added adventures.

[unipanther99]

7018 includes seating that wasn't intended to be seating when the place was built. When they designed it, capacity was supposed to be 6100. That year, we had great success and some huge crowds in the Dome. The administration basically said, "oh crap, the McLeod is too small," so they added the bleachers and additional seating on the concourse.

I believe they stop selling advance tickets at 6500. They never turn away students, so they can pack it in as tight as they want, and that is what allows for the attendance figures higher than 7000. But whenever you have 6500 people in there, the place is packed.

And MVJ, is their any presidence of a school increasing their attendance at a greater rate or climbing their conference attendance ladder at a better rate than UNI has done? I'm sure there probably is, and I've done quite a bit of research in this thread, so I will let you have a crack at this one.