Final league attendance numbers

by **ValleyFAN** » March 4th, 2019, 7:23 am

Bradley 5429
Illinois State 5424
Evansville 5299
MO State 5150
SIU 4472
Indiana State 3962
Loyola 3712
UNI 3666
Drake 3322
Valpo 2821

I am sure that there are certain posters on here that would like to see this posted as % capacity filled instead of butts in the seats but this is the data that the league office posted. Without looking it up I know that the Bears gained around 600 per game from last season, Evansville made a huge jump as well. Loyola I am sure did too. Not sure on the others, maybe their fans can give insight.

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by **BCPanther** » March 4th, 2019, 8:20 am

UNI's worst year in the McLeod Center.

That's what happens when you're awful in the non-con, coming off a 9th place finish, have one decent non-con home game and have two Top 25 P6 teams 90 minutes from your front door.

It's got to get better, and get better quick, in Cedar Falls.

by **ValleyFAN** » March 4th, 2019, 8:23 am

BCPanther wrote:UNI's worst year in the McLeod Center.

That's what happens when you're awful in the non-con, coming off a 9th place finish, have one decent non-con home game and have two Top 25 P6 teams 90 minutes from your front door.

It's got to get better, and get better quick, in Cedar Falls.

I thought your team made a really nice showing for themselves as the year progressed but I guess the crowds never came out. The Bears were the opposite, didnt see a real big jump in attendance right from the start even though there was a new coach, but the crowds did come as the team had some successes later in the year, peaking with a 7,800 attendance on Saturday.

by **Jsnhbe1Birds** » March 4th, 2019, 8:29 am

Illinois State 53.7% filled when taken into account the missing seats from the band (rough estimate).

by **ValleyFAN** » March 4th, 2019, 9:16 am

Jsnhbe1Birds wrote:Illinois State 53.7% filled when taken into account the missing seats from the band (rough estimate).

Missouri State 47% capacity. The last game of the year was their peak at 71% capacity. The lower bowl and about half of the uppers were full.

by **BCPanther** » March 4th, 2019, 10:03 am

UNI would be at 56%.

Only one game over 5000 all year. Embarrassing job on the floor and, as always, by our marketing people.

by **ValleyFAN** » March 4th, 2019, 10:12 am

BCPanther wrote:UNI would be at 56%.

Only one game over 5000 all year. Embarrassing job on the floor and, as always, by our marketing people.

Missouri State offered a few ticket deals at the end of the season which helped attendance. Against Illinois State they offered a $5 sit where you want thing, so lower bowl seats normally $29 were only $5. Against Drake all tix were 1/2 price. They also did $1 drinks and hotdogs, so a lot of families were excited for that.

by **Mikovio** » March 4th, 2019, 10:25 am

Bradley was significantly down, pretty much thanks to no good noncon opponents and a really, really bad stretch of losing 7 of 8 from late Dec to late Jan. Just brutal to watch. Wardle figured it out just in time to climb to .500 but that killed a lot of casual fan interest.

by **Majik45** » March 4th, 2019, 11:03 am

Bradley was down about 250 fans per game vs. last year. The terrible December/January start was pretty much why. Bradley lost a bunch at end of non-con and then started valley season 0-5. This drove the casual fans away this year as Bradley was fighting to stay out of the play in game again.

Last year (2017) Bradley was competing for top 3 spot into February and the fans responded, with last 3 home games all having over 7,700 fans. Bradley's biggest game this year was 7,100 vs. ISUr. If Bradley can get it together and actually compete for a title, I think we could average over 7,000 again and have some games close to 10,000.

by **mvfcfan** » March 4th, 2019, 11:04 am

I know that this is by tickets sold, but I can tell you that at Indiana State we didn't have 2000 actual butts in the seats most of the season. The sell out against Loyola probably inflated our numbers a lot and the only reason it was a sell out was because of a combination of Larry Bird / the '79 team and Loyola coming off a F4. Besides that our crowds were probably about the worse they've ever been and if we don't get better soon they'll only get worse.