squirrel wrote:cpacmel wrote:Drakey wrote:Why doesn't Belmont get any support on here? They seem to have a better program in a big city.
Not speaking for anyone besides me, but Belmont has had some great years, including this year. But their fan support has been bad. This year they were 26-6 and 13-0 at home and they only drew 2,700 per game on average. Their arena maxes out at 5k too currently.
That's a fair point, cpacmel. Although, I look at it this way, they've been Division I now 17 years. During that time, they have had 3 different conference situations. During their 11-year run in the A-Sun, they did enjoy the continued rivalry with crosstown Lipscomb (who also reclassified from NAIA in the late 1990's).
If they joined the Valley, it would be their 4th league situation in 17 years. It takes some time to develop familiarity among the fan base.
They also have a sugar daddy and a whole potential pool of them if they played their cards right.
That's fair. Lately I have just been looking at bottom lines. The fact that their arena maxes out at 5K is worrisome, when you consider the lowest team for attendance just averaged that. So even if they do come out and sell out every single game, their attendance is going to put them at or near the bottom. And that's best case scenario.
Then throw in how many fans that potentially translates to Arch Maddness...and it's a red flag to me.