Where Have All the Fans Gone?

Discussion in 'Sports' started by VolDad, Feb 17, 2012.

  1. VolDad

    VolDad Super Moderator

    The ACC, Long a College Basketball Hotbed, Is Seeing Empty Seats; The Realignment Blues.

    It was the kind of college-basketball game that used to guarantee a packed house.

    When North Carolina took the court to play Wake Forest in Winston-Salem, N.C., one night last month, it marked the reunion of two storied conference rivals whose campuses are separated by a short drive across the spine of a basketball-crazy state.

    Yet when the No. 5 Tar Heels arrived, they found a crowd nearly 2,000 short of capacity. Never mind that Wake is having an off year; it was the lowest turnout for that matchup since Joel Coliseum opened in 1989.

    Across the 12-team Atlantic Coast Conference this season, the story is much the same. Average home attendance at men's games, which has fallen in each of the past four seasons, is (as of Monday) tracking 13.5% below the final average from 2006.

    At Duke, the famously raucous student fans known as "Cameron Crazies" aren't using their full ticket allotment this season. At Maryland, attendance at Comcast Center has dropped 24% in six years, prompting a student-led online campaign to encourage others to show up.........


    College Basketball: The ACC Is Seeing Empty Seats - WSJ.com
     
  2. kptvol

    kptvol Super Moderator

    How many students does Duke have? I figured that would be one of those places where you could go for four years and never get a student ticket. I know UK bball is like that.
     
  3. volfanbill

    volfanbill Active Member

    Duke has just under 15k students (undergrad and grad). Pretty sure the undergrad number is below 7k. Don't quote me on that last part though. There are no student tickets exactly, it's just general admission by being first in line. I think it's 1200 seats in the student section, but it could be 1500.
     
  4. cotton

    cotton Stand-up Philosopher

    I know hundreds of UK grads, and every one of them got student tickets at some time. I'm sure none of them got all of the tickets they ever wanted, but it isn't like students can't get tickets to games.

    They are some of the cheapest, [itch bay] ingest, most entitled feeling bastards you will ever come across, but tickets at Rupp for students ain't that tough.
     
  5. kptvol

    kptvol Super Moderator

    From what I understand you enter a lottery thy gives no preference to upper clansmen and it's all random. So, it isn't like UT where you have to be one of the first few thousand to show up. You could potentially wait for hours at the lotto event and walk away with nothing. Sounded pretty shitty. I know a die hard fan that went there and only got tickets for a very few games, all if which were against sucky opponents. In contrast, I had tickets for every UT football home game during my time as a student and was never turned away for a basketball game. The important difference is that a die hard UT fan that commits to getting there early will definitely get a seat.
     
  6. IP

    IP Super Moderator

    I don't like the "show up early" thing for students, but I have to admit it guarantees the fans that say they want in the most get in.


    Just the 24 hour campouts where people are skipping classes bothers me.
     
  7. ole_orange

    ole_orange Board Simp

    As someone who goes to UT now, I am very thankful that we have transitioned into online student tickets. Camping out would suck.
     
  8. IP

    IP Super Moderator

    Do students who get the tickets online actually go? That pissed me off about the student football lottery my last year as a grad student. Students wouldn't show up unless they had the very best seats.
     
  9. ole_orange

    ole_orange Board Simp

    I'm only a freshman so I don't know at all how it was in the past, but I would say for the most part students go regardless of their seat location. Passing up a Neyland experience over a seat is pretty foolish. Alcohol is the main cause of no shows in the student section.
     
  10. volfanbill

    volfanbill Active Member

    I'm not sure about others, but Duke is set up that 8 people can live in one tent and you simply have to have one person from the tent inside the tent at certain checks. The checks are also announced ahead of time. They've always claimed they don't really have an issue with people skipping on classes just to get tickets. They could just be feeding the media some bull though.
     
  11. IP

    IP Super Moderator

    At Tennessee, for the Florida and Kentucky home basketball games the camping/skipping was a bit ridiculous. Virtually everyone behind the basket and down low skipped class that day.
     
  12. dknash

    dknash Chieftain

    Odd, I would have thought Klansmen would have gotten luxury boxes at Rupp.

    /autocorrect
     
  13. hardwoodfanatic

    hardwoodfanatic New Member

    Don't be hatin' just because the nerds do not camp out to get into that Barn Vandy plays in. :D
     
  14. cotton

    cotton Stand-up Philosopher

    Wasn't hating, just correcting. It has been a while, and I'm not sure how they do it now, but there were campouts for the top Vandy games when I was there.

    UK fans, and students, [itch bay] just like any other group. Rupp is a big arena, tickets are in demand, and nobody always gets what they want, but I've never met anybody who really wanted to go to a game that didn't find a way.

    Also, Memorial is not a barn. It is the finest combination gymnasium/opera house in the Greater Middle Tennessee area.
     
  15. hardwoodfanatic

    hardwoodfanatic New Member

    Yep, and it sticks out because there are more of them. During what era did you grace the West End?
     
  16. cotton

    cotton Stand-up Philosopher

    I was a freshman in '92-93--Vandy's SEC champion, sweet 16 team with Billy McCaffrey, Ronnie Mac, and Chris Lawson. Those games were a hell of a lot of fun. I think Vandy beat 3 or 4 top 10 teams at home.

    BTW, do you have any idea how many UK fans I know that are going to New Orleans for the SECT without any intention of ever going to the gym? There are many things I will never understand.
     
  17. hardwoodfanatic

    hardwoodfanatic New Member

    McCaffrey is one of my all time favorite players. Even though I was a blue goggled 14 year old, I still watched every Vandy game I could when he played. As for the fans head to Nola, yeah it is quite the phenomenon. Cat fans who can't score the whole package still want to be involved in some form or fashion. Many of them make it their vacation, to go the SEC Tourney and vacation at the same time, especially when it is in Nola. I can't say that if I was planning a trip to New Orleans, that I probably wouldn't enjoy it with thousands of other Cat fans. There is something special about taking over a town like that with your fanbase, and UK fans just take pride in that I guess. However, if I'm going that far, you can bet your ass I'll have tickets.
     
  18. justingroves

    justingroves supermod

    Live a little IP
     
  19. cotton

    cotton Stand-up Philosopher

    Lots of interesting rumors at the time about why he left Duke.

    Also, for anyone who digs at Kenny Hall for missing dunks, they should try to find some old footage of Chris Woods from that team. He was a good SEC player, but I'm pretty sure he holds the conference record for banging it off the back of the iron from point blank.
     
  20. IP

    IP Super Moderator

    Ya, ya.
     

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