Comments on: NCAA Attendance Figures: A Closer Examination

By: TheDistrict

TheDistrict — Sun, 08 May 2011 13:59:39 +0000

“I’d like to see a comparison between arena size and enrollment. Butler’s arena holds more than twice the university’s enrollment. That’s part of why it was only filled 71.8% coming off a national finalist season.”

@inDglass – Right, but what about Xavier? They have an enrollment of 4,368 whereas Butler has an enrollment of 3,861. Their arenas are relatively the same size (the Cintas Center holds an extra 250 over Hinkle) and both schools are in similarly sized cities. That being said, Xavier is at 98.5% of capacity while Butler is at 71.8%. Meanwhile, Butler has certainly had the better program as of late.

I just don’t buy enrollment as an explanation for low attendance given the numbers being generated by a similarly sized school two hours southeast of them.

By: EMAW

EMAW — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 13:43:26 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ_zqB1iBuU

KU @ K-State sandstorm sudent section

By: rtmsf

rtmsf — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 00:39:45 +0000

In reply to Matt B.. Good point on Villanova. I edited their numbers to reflect the split-home situation.

By: Matt B.

Matt B. — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 22:44:32 +0000

I think Villanova needs to be edited. Their capacity is stated as if they played 17 games at the 20,000 seat Wells Fargo Center, but they actually only played 7 games there. The other 10 games were played at The Pavillion, which only holds 6,500. Accounting for that, the “true capacity” for Villanova home games was 207,296 between all 17 games at both venues. With actual attendance at 178,692, their true percentage was 86.2%, not 51.7%.

By: KSU

KSU — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 19:37:35 +0000

It’s nice to see the entire state of Kansas repped pretty well.

By: rtmsf

rtmsf — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 16:45:36 +0000

In reply to inDglass. Would be interesting as well, although I give Butler less of a pass b/c their arena is on-campus and built for basketball (in other words, not a municipal multi-use auditorium, necessarily).

By: inDglass

inDglass — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 12:01:42 +0000

I’d like to see a comparison between arena size and enrollment. Butler’s arena holds more than twice the university’s enrollment. That’s part of why it was only filled 71.8% coming off a national finalist season.

By: rtmsf

rtmsf — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 03:55:09 +0000

In reply to Luke.

Luke – I’m pretty sure that most schools calculate paid attendance rather than actual attendance, and from a bottom-line perspective, that’s reasonable b/c the same amt of $$ flow to the athletic dept’s coffers. Understand the point, though.

By: Luke

Luke — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 03:34:59 +0000

I live in Durham and went to two Duke games this year (Colgate and Carolina). Let me just say, there were TONS of empty seats against Colgate, and a few against Carolina (specifically, six in my row of eight seats). Duke had to have lied about those numbers…there is no chance they are accurate.