Attendance

Discuss the MVC hoops season here.

Attendance

Postby municup14 » January 8th, 2023, 7:41 am

As bad as my beloved Aces are this year we drew 6487 people for Illinois St.
5723 for Murray St,thanks to the Racers for bringing at least 1000.And we
had 4603for Bellermine. Nice crowds but not a fun team to watch.
municup14
MVC starter
MVC starter
 
Posts: 358
Joined: February 25th, 2016, 6:15 am

Attendance

Sponsor

Sponsor
 

Re: Attendance

Postby hot nuts » January 8th, 2023, 2:04 pm

I didn't realize the Redbirds were such a big draw!
hot nuts
All MVC
All MVC
 
Posts: 636
Joined: August 5th, 2010, 8:54 am

Re: Attendance

Postby E-Villan » January 8th, 2023, 2:42 pm

The new guys AD Ziggy brought in have a done a nice job busting their rears marketing the team this year. Not an easy sell, but a marked improvement in effort.

I have said this before, but we had to get our administration in place before we could see results on the court. It's painful this year, but I do feel for once we have the right guys running things, especially President and AD. Below is a tweet from a local sportsguy after the game yesterday. AD's thanking fans may be common elsewhere, but nothing close to this has been going on here for at least the last 20 years. The culture has finally changed.

https://twitter.com/RandallParmley/stat ... 3Fpage%3D6
E-Villan
MVC starter
MVC starter
 
Posts: 365
Joined: January 14th, 2015, 11:18 pm

Re: Attendance

Postby Bulldog2323 » January 8th, 2023, 9:19 pm

Good to see Evansville coming alive. Drake is slowly seeing Knapp Center improvements pay off. The last two games have gotten over the 3000 mark, up to 3510 for yesterday's game.

Next weekend, Bradley at Drake will be the first Saturday Night game at the Knapp Center since the November 2015. Back in the early 2010s Saturday Night games brought the best attendance for Drake. I hope we get a good crowd and Drake administration takes notice. Whenever Drake has had control over weekend game time they've really liked the 2:00 PM start time for some reason the last several years.....
Bulldog2323
MVC Role Player
MVC Role Player
 
Posts: 188
Joined: February 18th, 2018, 7:52 pm

Re: Attendance

Postby ValleyFAN » January 9th, 2023, 8:35 am

Happy for those schools that are showing some interest in their attendance.

Missouri State is headed the wrong way and I'm not sure what administration thinks the solution is, or if they even care. We're down to 2,000 on a bad day and 3,500 or so on a good one.

They considerably knocked down the price of season tickets which did garner some interest but the walk-up crowd are probably worse than ever, so attendance just isnt good at all. Springfield is notoriously cheap and full of people that will only back a consistent winner, meaning NCAA tournaments. Heck the Bears have finished 3rd and 2nd (with an NIT) in the past couple seasons and attendance never really improved, It's actually gotten worse.

Another issue is that it's a huge arena and fans scattered all over the place so it lacks in atmosphere. They close off the upper bowl for Lady Bears games and I think a lot of fans would like to see them do that for the mens games as well. Would fill it up more down there and improve both atmosphere and appearances. They also need to make walk-up tickets as cheap as possible, concessions specials, whatever it takes. Need to give away free tickets to youth teams, elementary schools, etc just to get people in the door.
ValleyFAN
MVC starter
MVC starter
 
Posts: 216
Joined: February 26th, 2011, 11:13 pm

Re: Attendance

Postby municup14 » January 9th, 2023, 9:35 am

If we could get a conference contending team I could see UE drawing 8000 for a weekend game.
On a side note USI Evansvilles other D1 school is only drawing around 2800 for a game
municup14
MVC starter
MVC starter
 
Posts: 358
Joined: February 25th, 2016, 6:15 am

Re: Attendance

Postby Saluki44 » January 9th, 2023, 10:15 am

I've been impressed by the attendance numbers for Evansville considering how much that program has struggled for as long as I can remember. Perhaps it has something to do with the basketball craze in that part of the state?
Saluki44
MVC Walk On
MVC Walk On
 
Posts: 9
Joined: January 27th, 2020, 7:49 am

Re: Attendance

Postby ValleyFAN » January 9th, 2023, 10:21 am

To further my previous post, Springfield is a weird sports town in that we'll get 7,000 in the arena for the championship games of the Blue and Gold local high school tournament. We'll have 10,000+ in attendance this Saturday at the Bass Pro Tournament of Champions high school tournament which draws teams from all over the country. So it's not that people don't care about basketball, they just dont care about the Bears. In addition a lot of the casual fans that used to buy tickets now feel content to just watch at home on ESPN+. I used to think this was exaggerated but I'm now convinced that is does in fact have a significant effect.

When I was a kid you could buy $3 bleacher seats for Hammons Student Center at local gas stations. That's how we got most of our tickets. I dont want to devalue the product on the floor but Ozarkers are notoriously cheap. If you want butts in the seats you might have to make some sacrifices.
ValleyFAN
MVC starter
MVC starter
 
Posts: 216
Joined: February 26th, 2011, 11:13 pm

Re: Attendance

Postby E-Villan » January 9th, 2023, 11:43 am

Bulldog2323 wrote:Good to see Evansville coming alive. Drake is slowly seeing Knapp Center improvements pay off. The last two games have gotten over the 3000 mark, up to 3510 for yesterday's game.

Next weekend, Bradley at Drake will be the first Saturday Night game at the Knapp Center since the November 2015. Back in the early 2010s Saturday Night games brought the best attendance for Drake. I hope we get a good crowd and Drake administration takes notice. Whenever Drake has had control over weekend game time they've really liked the 2:00 PM start time for some reason the last several years.....


Why such a long gap on Saturday night games? Drake runs the Knapp, correct? I agree Saturday nights are huge. Our last Saturday night game was in December of 2019 against Murray State. No coincidence, it was the last time we cracked 7K for a game. Our problem is the management contractor for the Ford Center, Venuworks, owns the minor league hockey team. Guess who is playing on Saturday night? Hopefully the new AD and company take a stronger stance with negotiating dates, but we really have no cards to play as alternative venues.

USI at 2,800 is nothing to sneeze at in today's environment. Valpo had a little over 900 last week. I noticed Missouri State was indeed pretty light last week. I was a little surprised given the talent this year, and the past support they have always gotten. With the high school support you are getting there, I wouldn't think it is hopeless to get the crowds back. We don't sell upper deck or even end zones until the sides are sold. I agree that the larger arenas can be tough to get atmosphere at 30-40%.
E-Villan
MVC starter
MVC starter
 
Posts: 365
Joined: January 14th, 2015, 11:18 pm

Re: Attendance

Postby racernation » January 9th, 2023, 3:53 pm

It's probably because people are broke - especially right after the holidays.
racernation
MVC Role Player
MVC Role Player
 
Posts: 167
Joined: September 28th, 2021, 10:14 am

Next

Return to Missouri Valley Conference Basketball

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Google [Bot] and 48 guests