NCAA Basketball Attendance 2013

[shocksrbest]

I disagree. Cameron Indoor is a 70 year old stadium that is rich in tradition and very different from many new arenas. I think it probably harms Duke's image or fanbase or whatever if they upgrade to a new stadium that holds 20,000 people. Otherwise they would, it's obviously not due to a shortage of funds. Theirs is a unique situation. I don't see any reason we wouldn't benefit from more seats. I think we are already one of the best places in the country to watch a basketball game and I think adding three to five thousand more seats would make it that much more intimidating.

The atmosphere is one of the top-10 in the country--#7 last I saw. But with an increased size you have to wonder about the long-term demographics of our fan base. Many have been ticket holders since the days of Harry Miller and Gene Smithson--a long time.

We have a great and loud atmosphere but who will fill the 3-5 thousand additional seats when die-hard fans hold the 10,000 we currently have? We need to attract a larger student section. This will fill the seats and ramp up the decibel level significantly.

[fastbow]

The atmosphere is one of the top-10 in the country--#7 last I saw. But with an increased size you have to wonder about the long-term demographics of our fan base. Many have been ticket holders since the days of Harry Miller and Gene Smithson--a long time.

We have a great and loud atmosphere but who will fill the 3-5 thousand additional seats when die-hard fans hold the 10,000 we currently have? We need to attract a larger student section. This will fill the seats and ramp up the decibel level significantly.

Yeah, that's going to be an unpopular suggestion here, pal. There's posters here who already want to throw the existing students out on their ears. You won't find much support for that idea here.

I love it though, for the record.

[Metalkatz]

Well I think increasing the student population on campus is part of the 10 year plan. I don't think Ive seen it posted here, but they plan to have 5 brand new dorms all on or near the center of campus. Having an additional 3-6k students on campus, with hopefully 25% going to the games would see a nice increase in demand.

[pogo]

I disagree. Cameron Indoor is a 70 year old stadium that is rich in tradition and very different from many new arenas. I think it probably harms Duke's image or fanbase or whatever if they upgrade to a new stadium that holds 20,000 people. Otherwise they would, it's obviously not due to a shortage of funds. Theirs is a unique situation. I don't see any reason we wouldn't benefit from more seats. I think we are already one of the best places in the country to watch a basketball game and I think adding three to five thousand more seats would make it that much more intimidating.

Your reasons on why cameron indoor arena would be wrong for duke can be used as the exact same reasons that they shouldn't be done at CKA.

[pogo]

Yeah, that's going to be an unpopular suggestion here, pal. There's posters here who already want to throw the existing students out on their ears. You won't find much support for that idea here.

I love it though, for the record.

I don't believe there have been any suggestions to throw the students out on their ear. Quite the contrary, many have voiced their displeasure at the lack luster attendance of the students. I wouldn't worry about the demographics because the people that currently have had tickets since Harry Miller and Gene Smithson were the ones that replaced the old fans that had held tickets since Ralph Miller and Gary Thompson. The ones that replace the current old guard are the ones that are buying season tickets during the Mark Turgeon and Gregg Marshall eras. All questions of expansion begs the question "At what cost". At what time does it become more cost effective to build a new basketball only arena and let the womens basketball and volleyball teams be the chief users?

[ShockerPhi]

Another thing to think about:

Creighton brings an average of 17,000 each game. Yet their atmosphere, in the words of Dana Altman himself, is like a library. Yes, I know we probably have more rowdy fans, but if we increase that much, it's just so much more room for the sound to go and actually making it seem quieter. Also, who knows, but I think the additional 5000 fans this might bring to our arena will be quieter fans who would prefer to sit on their butts the whole game.

Just my 2 cents

[fastbow]

I don't believe there have been any suggestions to throw the students out on their ear. Quite the contrary, many have voiced their displeasure at the lack luster attendance of the students.

And the people that usually voice that opinion usually follow it with "why do we even have 1000 tickets reserved for the students? Make the bums buy their way in." I've gone to war with people too many times over that same sentiment on here, so I maintain there's a lot of anti-student sentiment here, and that because of that, shocksrbest's idea will go over like veal at a vegan convention.

[ABC]

Students helped pay for Koch Arena via student fees and thus they get 1,000 free tickets and that is the way it should be.

Regarding some of the topics above, I think if WSU's arena held 13,000 or so, it would come close to filling up most nights. Yes, I know that Koch Arena is 100% full every night, but neither is Allen Field House or several other places that advertise they are 100%.

So someone might think how can we fill 13,000 when we can't fill 10,000; I think what happened when Creighton moved from their 10,000 seat municipal arena to the Qwest Center is an example.

[SubGod22]

And the people that usually voice that opinion usually follow it with "why do we even have 1000 tickets reserved for the students? Make the bums buy their way in." I've gone to war with people too many times over that same sentiment on here, so I maintain there's a lot of anti-student sentiment here, and that because of that, shocksrbest's idea will go over like veal at a vegan convention.

They say that out of frustration because the students don't use their tickets. Nobody has said remove them but some have said limit the number of tickets. A lot of those tickets go unused because they're not available to the public until a day or two before the game. That does limit to some extent the number of people willing to wait and buy those as you simply don't know what it's going to look like. Even you have to admit that for most games, the student support is fairly soft. Most of the upper portion is filled by people who wait and buy them. I used to have season tix right next to the section and feel pretty comfortable with that statement. Most of the students that do show up are great and most on here have said so. They're just disappointed with the numbers.

[wu_shizzle]

I agree. And it would have only cost a few million more to raise the attendance to 12,000 to 13,000 when the renovations were made. Unfortunately our previous athletic director decided against doing that. Instead he made it slightly smaller (reduced seating capacity slightly). He was more interested in padding his resume with sell outs then looking to build the program for the future.

A few million more? Try tens of millions. And saying this was all because of selfishness by Jim Schaus? Give me a break. 10,500 is a lot of seats. Many fans may not want to hear this but limited supply equals increased ticket pricing which is good for the athletic department.

[Steeleshocker]

My thought is we have the perfect size arena. Big enough that we regularly site up on the top 50 in the nation in attendance, and we pack it in almost every night. My concern would be that expanding the arena would make it more difficult for the fans to make it crazy loud. Acoustics can do some funny things.

We do need to do a better job of filling up the student section, but I'm hoping a Final Four appearance will take care of that.

Until we have more than a thousand people on the waiting list for season tickets, it's pointless to consider a larger arena.

[ripemupshocks]

We all know some of those teams are padding their attendance numbers by reporting tickets sold instead of actual attendance. The tractor tech mildcats are a classic example of that. I swear some of their ooc games couldn't have any more than about 6000 butts in the seats, but they report an average attendance of 12,528. Bullshat! I'd much rather have an honest 10,312 at our games than their inflated figure of 12,528.

[SubGod22]

We all know some of those teams are padding their attendance numbers by reporting tickets sold instead of actual attendance. The tractor tech mildcats are a classic example of that. I swear some of their ooc games couldn't have any more than about 6000 butts in the seats, but they report an average attendance of 12,528. Bullshat! I'd much rather have an honest 10,312 at our games than their inflated figure of 12,528.

Complain all you want, but WSU does the same thing. We use tickets sold, not tickets used.

[shockmonster]

Complain all you want, but WSU does the same thing. We use tickets sold, not tickets used.

Let's me honest. Both are padded but the Shockers always have had a mostly full arena (barring top half student section) compared a half full arena. Not the same fan effect. Ours would only have 4-5,000 used seats to equal their situation. However, the accounting is done the same way.

[ShockerFever]

I agree. And it would have only cost a few million more to raise the attendance to 12,000 to 13,000 when the renovations were made. Unfortunately our previous athletic director decided against doing that. Instead he made it slightly smaller (reduced seating capacity slightly). He was more interested in padding his resume with sell outs then looking to build the program for the future.

That made absolutely zero sense. You want to change the integrity and acoustics of Koch Arena for a couple thousand more seats, when we can't even sell out Koch or its season tickets on a consistent basis yet?

That was bad and bad all the way around.