BG - OHIO

[h2oville rocket]

Any way...that 13,000 seat arena had 8400 in it for a game against a huge rival. OU...coming off a historic NCAA run and playing against a traditional rival on a Saturday afternoon plays to a roughly 65% capacity crowd.

1) Kent is not a "huge" rival. Miami is our rival, and our disdain for Akron is up there. Kent is a distant 3rd.

2) Tip was at 11AM. It was originally scheduled for 7PM. The change in time for tv likely cost us 1,500 fans.

3) That 65% capacity crowd is 3x the size of the MAC average. Pretty impressive.

His point wasn't to denigrate the size of OU's fanbase but to say even at OU, with all those things going for it, they can't fill their fieldhouse. The concern in the thread was overbuilding-no MAC school needs a 13,000 seat arena. Few need even a 6,000 seat arena.

Give that man a cigar....or a stuffed bear...something.

Cash?

[Flipper]

No cash...it's the carny code.

[BleedOrange]

Any way...that 13,000 seat arena had 8400 in it for a game against a huge rival. OU...coming off a historic NCAA run and playing against a traditional rival on a Saturday afternoon plays to a roughly 65% capacity crowd.

1) Kent is not a "huge" rival. Miami is our rival, and our disdain for Akron is up there. Kent is a distant 3rd.

2) Tip was at 11AM. It was originally scheduled for 7PM. The change in time for tv likely cost us 1,500 fans.

3) That 65% capacity crowd is 3x the size of the MAC average. Pretty impressive.

His point wasn't to denigrate the size of OU's fanbase but to say even at OU, with all those things going for it, they can't fill their fieldhouse. The concern in the thread was overbuilding-no MAC school needs a 13,000 seat arena. Few need even a 6,000 seat arena.

Flipper, the comment about OU's 8400 turnout diminishes your point, not support it. At 11am on Saturday morning, OU drew more than BG ever has in it's history. 8400 freaking people - 7-8 times the typical BG attendance during at times. If the game was played at a normal time, how many more would have attended?

I agree that 13,000 is an enormous capacity for a mid-major basketball facility and have never said that capacity made any sense for BG. However, let's look at the specific numbers. We could have built a facility to hold 7K or 8K, both of which would have been very reasonable sizes, and IMO preferable.

Admittedly, BG's situation is much better than that of NIU or EMU, which draw 100-200 per game. To my knowledge, that type of turnout is recent in the MAC and isn't historically normal for those schools. And I'll agree with Hammbone that when we start winning, I expect 3-4K per game quickly. At 4K, I will always say that the ceiling is too low.

(Please understand that I have been purposely rhetorical in this thread to emphasize my point.)

[Flipper]

The game started at 11 am....on a Saturday...most of Athens is heading home from Fri night at that hour. The game would have been an easy detour.

They have everything going for them...everything...including far more recent basketball tradition than we do and they drew 8,000. We've never had the interest in basketball that supports an arena above 5,000 or so capacity. Not when we're winning...not when we're losing. I don't recall a time in BG history (and I started here in 1979) when we were turning people away for basketball games. I understand the temptation to build up with the hopes of establishing a bigger footprint, but when $$$ are tight and there's never been the kind of interest to suggest that an 8,000-10,000 seat arena is feasible, it doesn't strike me as a prudent investment.

[hammb]

The game started at 11 am....on a Saturday...most of Athens is heading home from Fri night at that hour. The game would have been an easy detour.

They have everything going for them...everything...including far more recent basketball tradition than we do and they drew 8,000. We've never had the interest in basketball that supports an arena above 5,000 or so capacity. Not when we're winning...not when we're losing. I don't recall a time in BG history (and I started here in 1979) when we were turning people away for basketball games. I understand the temptation to build up with the hopes of establishing a bigger footprint, but when $$$ are tight and there's never been the kind of interest to suggest that an 8,000-10,000 seat arena is feasible, it doesn't strike me as a prudent investment.

In the '01-02 season we had everything going for us that we could ever hope for. Dakich was still full of charisma with students, fans, and townspeople. We had been winning a lot with regular season MAC titles in recent years. We had progressed from Antonio Daniels to Anthony Stacey to Keith McLeod...never having a team in the past 5-6 years without at least one bona fide star player.

During that season we won, we won big, and we did so in exciting fashion.

Still I think there were only about 3 games where tickets were actually tough to come by (Michigan, Kent State, and maybe UNC-Wilmington). Those games students had to show up with their ID to get tickets in advance because there was a limit on how many students could attend.

Now granted we didn't have a recent tourney appearance and success to build off of, but still interest in BG basketball was high. Students and Townies alike CARED. Even with that, we didn't need an 8000 seat arena. 4500 seat Anderson was good enough and a similarly sized Stroh would have been as well.