Attendance

Basketball attendance was a pretty big issue this year, especially with the Blade running an article about the low attendance. It certainly is an issue. The fan base lost touch with the basketball program sometime about when Ron Lewis left (not implying cause and effect, just saying that was about when) . Prior to that, going to the basketball games was just something people did, students and community alike.

Obviously that isn't how it is now. There is still a die-hard fan base, but parts of the Arena that used to be filled with regulars are now empty.

If you are curious, here is the attendance over the last four years.




So, while attendance creeped up into the area where it was a couple years ago, we're pretty much playing around on the bottom margins here. There's a lot of room for growth.

Winning will help. Our last few games were over 2,000 in attendance, which is an improvement. As more people are in the arena, that will help to create the electric atmosphere we all love, and that reinforces itself and brings more people in.

We are hampered by one thing....while we are playing winning basketball, it is not exciting basketball, and we do not have a star player that has the charisma to draw people into the arena. That is an obstacle, but I think it can be overcome, perhaps by developing an identity for the fans, like "The Rock" where the fans become part of our impenetrable defense.

I'm hoping continued progress will help to bring around this aspect of our program. It would be a great thing to bring the Roar back to the house.