2015 MVC Attendance: It's bad.

[Rlh04d]

My god that's a lot of decimal places. My engineering professor would take off points for that many numbers after the period.

Joking aside, still depressing.

Edit: To be a little more consistent, I'd say the Pre-Valley numbers should maybe be like the 10 years or so previous to joining the Valley. In Loyola's case, since they've only been here two years, maybe make their Pre-Valley numbers be the 2 or 3 years prior to joining the valley. See what the real difference is.

So Loyola's Pre-Valley average of 3 years prior to joining would be 2327.7. Not that big of difference I guess

Haha. I cleaned up all of the other numbers ... forgot those :)

When you're only bringing in 2327 fans a game, that's a big difference. Loyola's attendance is down 22% from an already poor number. My point is, I think it's pretty clear that attendance is based on the team's success itself, playing rivals, or playing ranked and/or name-brand teams. A conference change resulting in a generalized increase in SOS actually seems to hurt attendance, because it decreases the success of the team itself without adding rivals or large numbers of name-brand teams.

If I go back 10 years, MoSt and UNI do have attendance increases since joining the Valley, but I think you'd be hard pressed to argue that either is because the team plays better opponents now. Going back 10 years just takes you away from the point where those teams got hot enough to be brought into the Valley and into their bad years, where the lack of success resulted in lower attendance, not the teams they were playing.

	Evansville	Loyola	Missouri St	UNI
Pre-Valley (10 years):	9,309	2,347	5,945	3,867
Valley:	6,569	1,844	6,914	4,111

[Rlh04d]

Maybe Sexton and Bardo are thinking of the OTHER sports WSU has, not just basketball. Look at Creighton's example. The cost is prohibitive for them to send teams (volleyball, wbb, soccer, track and field, etc.) as far away as they have to. Not real sure the "wonderful windfall" TV revenue from Fox1 Sports is enough to offset all that expense. Plus I can't even imagine what a headache all those travel accommodations are for someone to make.

Unquestionably the $4 million FS1 is paying the Big East MORE than makes up for any additional costs. Probably 20 times over.

The costs are not prohibitive. If there's a negative there, it's a competitive one or a quality of life one for the student athletes, but not cost.

Now the cost for us to join the A10 or the AAC might very well be cost prohibitive, but that's because neither one of those conferences is earning anything close to $4 million a team.

For comparison: WSU's expenses across all men's/women's athletic programs, minus coach salaries, gameday costs, recruiting costs, and student aid (basically, all things that wouldn't go up with increased travel) are $2,393,843. Nearly half what Creighton makes annually from the Big East TV contract.

[ripemupshocks]

Gotta hand it to BU. Second best fan base in the conference.

[TheDover1018]

I'd be curious how these attendance trends compare to nation-wide trends. That would be the true litmus test to me if the Valley is in a more precarious position than other conferences. The Valley has clearly trended down from a talent perspective when looking at conference RPI. If it is trending down attendance wise compared to the rest of CBB, that is doubly troubling. If it is trending down similarly to the whole, the shrugs.

[TheDover1018]

Gotta hand it to BU. Second best fan base in the conference.

To be fair, UNI's arena can't hold only 5500 (off the top of my head) so percentage-wise they would be in 2nd, without actually checking all the numbers. But Bradley is still fairly impressive for how much of a train wreck they were. Goodness I hope Wardle is the right guy for the job.

[Rlh04d]

Need more Creighton.

That was my assumption too until I looked at the "worst seasons ever" basically for school attendance.

Lack of Creighton isn't why Bradley, Drake, Evansville, Loyola, Indiana State, and Southern Illinois all declined in attendance from 2014.

In fact the majority of schools increased in attendance without Creighton: WSU, Southern Illinois, Northern Iowa, Indiana State, Evansville, and Bradley all increased in attendance from 2013 to 2014, with only Drake, Illinois State, and Missouri State declining.

Swapping Creighton for Loyola is why the overall Valley attendance is particularly terrible, but we were going to be bad either way. If you swap Loyola's numbers for Creighton over the last two years, these are still the worst two years in nearly the last 15. It does take it out of "worst in decades" territory, though.

[Rlh04d]

To be fair, UNI's arena can't hold only 5500 (off the top of my head) so percentage-wise they would be in 2nd, without actually checking all the numbers. But Bradley is still fairly impressive for how much of a train wreck they were. Goodness I hope Wardle is the right guy for the job.

McCleod Center capacity is 7,018. UNI only had a single sellout all year: us. Senior night was close, and once they were rolling they had six consecutive games over 6k attendance.

Their numbers aren't being held down by arena capacity. Their percentage is good, but I don't think the percentage is relevant unless it's damn close to 100%. UNI played five home games under 4k attendance. That's embarrassing for the best season in UNI history.

UNI's fanbase just sucks in attendance. They're very bandwagon-y.

[wufan]

To be fair, UNI's arena can't hold only 5500 (off the top of my head) so percentage-wise they would be in 2nd, without actually checking all the numbers. But Bradley is still fairly impressive for how much of a train wreck they were. Goodness I hope Wardle is the right guy for the job.

UNIs gym holds just north of 7000. They sold out against WSU this year, so whatever they had against the Shockers is max capacity for them.

[TheDover1018]

McCleod Center capacity is 7,018. UNI only had a single sellout all year: us. Senior night was close, and once they were rolling they had six consecutive games over 6k attendance.

Their numbers aren't being held down by arena capacity. Their percentage is good, but I don't think the percentage is relevant unless it's damn close to 100%. UNI played five home games under 4k attendance. That's embarrassing for the best season in UNI history.

UNI's fanbase just sucks in attendance. They're very bandwagon-y.

This is a reminder to use facts when posting :)

I humbly retract my statement.

[Rlh04d]

I'd be curious how these attendance trends compare to nation-wide trends. That would be the true litmus test to me if the Valley is in a more precarious position than other conferences. The Valley has clearly trended down from a talent perspective when looking at conference RPI. If it is trending down attendance wise compared to the rest of CBB, that is doubly troubling. If it is trending down similarly to the whole, the shrugs.

I'll try to check this out tomorrow if I have time.

Seems like a pretty easy graph.

[TheDover1018]

I'll try to check this out tomorrow if I have time.

Seems like a pretty easy graph.

Thanks for taking the time to put all this together. Really interesting stuff.

[Rlh04d]

The thing that really gets me here:

Loyola's 2015 season total attendance for the 16 games they reported attendance not including vs WSU: 25,875
WSU combined attendance for Newman & Saint Louis: 25,510

[giskard]

30 year historical attendance numbers/averages for each Valley school:

Year	Bradley	Drake	Evansville	Loyola	Illinois St	Indiana St	Missouri St	North Iowa	Southern Ill	Wichita St
2015	5,726	3,423	4,224	1,761	5,519	4,364	5,300	5,170	4,897	10,806
2014	6,608	3,726	4,546	1,928	4,842	5,946	5,217	4,693	5,223	10,732
2013	6,557	3,926	4,463	2,278	6,541	5,726	6,080	4,249	5,007	10,312
2012	7,640	3,965	5,135	2,277	4,783	5,433	7,050	4,406	3,299	10,391
2011	8,447	4,230	4,910	2,428	4,636	5,602	7,595	4,767	4,188	10,428
2010	9,339	4,510	4,832	2,208	6,561	4,807	6,645	5,642	4,780	10,333
2009	9,110	5,101	5,863	2,270	7,118	4,009	7,147	4,212	5,892	10,095
2008	9,600	6,038	5,486	1,776	6,516	4,289	6,241	5,096	6,660	10,478
2007	9,728	5,458	5,494	2,850	5,092	4,328	7,176	6,298	7,743	10,478
2006	9,220	4,267	6,025	2,420	5,409	4,278	6,965	6,898	7,291	10,435
2005	9,337	4,810	6,318	2,451	6,450	3,781	6,573	4,692	6,730	10,325
2004	9,178	5,757	6,618	2,511	6,260	4,168	6,175	3,971	6,698	10,090
2003	9,351	3,969	6,671	3,010	6,021	4,339	6,295	3,220	6,567	8,190
2002	9,072	3,931	5,822	2,528	6,471	5,132	5,930	3,423	6,423	8,399
2001	9,112	3,731	7,148	2,247	7,047	6,056	6,700	2,537	4,483	8,114
2000	10,178	3,759	8,337	2,293	6,540	6,750	7,828	2,812	5,008	7,393
1999	9,532	4,199	8,587	2,811	7,397	6,061	7,646	2,244	3,345	7,358
1998	9,769	4,093	8,177	2,775	8,694	6,652	7,161	3,564	3,420	7,691
1997	9,625	4,352	8,348	3,222	8,472	4,895	7,722	2,709	3,566	9,449
1996	9,672	3,849	10,457	2,805	7,747	5,031	7,276	2,662	3,998	5,528
1995	9,521	4,917	10,489	2,663	7,162	5,108	6,522	3,073	6,442	7,010
1994	8,794	5,722	10,230	3,042	7,677	4,779	7,588	3,758	4,996	5,948
1993	7,271	6,288	11,740	2,708	8,302	5,210	7,798	3,332	6,575	7,779
1992	6,993	5,073	10,198	2,379	8,695	5,983	8,053	5,244	6,060	6,755
1991	7,384	4,565	10,784	1,980	8,712	5,356	8,173	5,530	6,022	8,011
1990	7,741	4,665	9,648	2,701	9,285	5,459	8,251	6,822	6,773	7,880
1989	8,918	5,266	9,280	1,918	10,829	4,087	8,249	4,100	5,699	9,906
1988	10,016	4,861	9,122	2,601	6,464	4,338	7,960	6,849	4,497	9,421
1987	8,709	5,971	7,923	3,301	6,085	3,961	7,158	2,663	3,323	8,464
1986	8,709	5,971	7,923	3,301	6,527	4,635	5,925	1,901	3,855	8,576
1985	7,542	4,453	6,245	6,186	6,840	4,947	4,372	2,963	3,793	9,731
Average:	8,214.07	4,366.63	7,088.37	2,346.03	6,526.93	4,718.80	6,639.13	3,982.20	5,023.60	8,246.43

WSU's worst year from the dark days (5,528 in 1996) would still have been better attendance than every other Valley team this past year except Bradley. Yikes!

That is sad that UNI did not have better attendance that that. How are they paying Jacobson so much?

[Rlh04d]

WSU's worst year from the dark days (5,528 in 1996) would still have been better attendance than every other Valley team this past year except Bradley. Yikes!

That is sad that UNI did not have better attendance that that. How are they paying Jacobson so much?

Same way we're paying Marshall this much: donors.

The difference is that we could pay Marshall what Jacobson makes just on ticket sales, and they can't.

If I'm reading the op.ed.gov site correctly, I'm pretty sure WSU can pay $2.33 million for coaching salaries just off men's basketball revenue - non salary costs. I might not be reading that correctly, though.

[ShockTalk]

@Rlh04d:, you say 30 year historical attendance, but your graph has 31 years. I haven't check out the other schools' attendance (not going to), but WSU's just didn't look right. I knew Bradley had the 2nd best attendance in the Valley and it was reasonably close to WSU, but not that close. We had 12 years where we averaged better than 2,000 over your average for WSU and also 12 years under your average for WSU, but many of those years are close to the average and only 2 year more than 2,000 under the average.

I come up with the following: 1st 9 years - 76,523 / 9 = 8,502. 2nd 10 years - 75,080 / 10 = 7,508. Last 12 years - 124,903 / 122 = 10,408.

For the 31 years: 276,506 / 31 = 8,919.