Final 22-23 Home Attendance Stats

[keith]

With the two home NIT games, the season attendance numbers somehow ended with a whimper instead of a bang.  First, the Alcorn State attendance was revised to 2,122 (down from 4,308 as initially reporting) making it the lowest attended home game of the season.   No one really expected us to match last year's regular season final, but we did break the 5,000 barrier against a bad WKU team.  Then the post-season.  Yes, Alcorn State and Sam Houston are not Texas State and Virginia, but man, what a disappointment.  Spring break, sure, but it was spring break last year too (I think).  At some point we need to become a fan-base that attends to see *our* team play and not rely on our opponent to be the draw.  I'm still questioning the accuracy of the Sam Houston numbers.

For all 16 games, we actually saw a -4.45% reduction in average attendance.  For regular season games only, we eked a 0.6% increase in average attendance.  Is ESPN+ driving down attendance?

[CMJ]

Yeah, it was Spring Break last year.

 

I know people won't like it, but a decent part of why Mac will likely take the Tech job is the lack of attendance.  I'm sure when he guided us to that CBI title and we had a couple of really nice crowds in the Final, he thought we'd keep that going.  We've probably only exceeded the Game 3 against San Francisco crowd...two or three times since.  Despite having some tremendous teams.

Edited March 24, 2023 by CMJ

[Green Otaku]

19 minutes ago, CMJ said:

Yeah, it was Spring Break last year.

 

I know people won't like it, but a decent part of why Mac will likely take the Tech job is the lack of attendance.  I'm sure when he guided us to that CBI title and we had a couple of really nice crowds in the Final, he thought we'd keep that going.  We've probably only exceeded the Game 3 against San Francisco crowd...two or three times since.  Despite having some tremendous teams.

Very true. You have 3-4 losses on the season and look around the arena to a sea of empty chairs. What more can you do to make the fans show up? 

[meangreenfaninno]

41 minutes ago, keith said:

With the two home NIT games, the season attendance numbers somehow ended with a whimper instead of a bang.  First, the Alcorn State attendance was revised to 2,122 (down from 4,308 as initially reporting) making it the lowest attended home game of the season.   No one really expected us to match last year's regular season final, but we did break the 5,000 barrier against a bad WKU team.  Then the post-season.  Yes, Alcorn State and Sam Houston are not Texas State and Virginia, but man, what a disappointment.  Spring break, sure, but it was spring break last year too (I think).  At some point we need to become a fan-base that attends to see *our* team play and not rely on our opponent to be the draw.  I'm still questioning the accuracy of the Sam Houston numbers.

For all 16 games, we actually saw a -4.45% reduction in average attendance.  For regular season games only, we eked a 0.6% increase in average attendance.  Is ESPN+ driving down attendance?

I respect your opinion, but I think it is important for you and many others to realize this is not just a UNT issue.  What I mean by that is fans today can watch every single game on ESPN plus for 10 bucks a month.  Until that changes it will impact us and every single program in the nation with very few exceptions.  Look at the sparse crowd at the OSU game the other night as an example.  So until you factor that into your analysis, I am sorry but you just can’t be taken seriously.

Edited March 24, 2023 by meangreenfaninno

[CMJ]

25 minutes ago, meangreenfaninno said:

I respect your opinion, but I think it is important for you and many others to realize this is not just a UNT issue.  What I mean by that is fans today can watch every single game on ESPN plus for 10 bucks a month.  Until that changes it will impact us and every single program in the nation with very few exceptions.  Look at the sparse crowd at the OSU game the other night as an example.  So until you factor that into your analysis, I am sorry but you just can’t be taken seriously.

Well, Oklahoma State has a proud history and it might be harder to get them excited.  I don't know.  Some of the programs from the power leagues drew well in the NIT, but just as many didn't.

[UNT74HM]

I’m 75 years old so correct me if l’m not remembering the following the following correctly. When I was finishing my degree in early 1970’s, I attended many basketball games in the super pit. I saw attendance at 9000 or so for several games when Bill Blakely was coach even though UNT (and Denton) was smaller. Two or three differences I remember: 

1) Students could sit anywhere on the East side and reserved was on the West side. 
2) Students could simply walk in by showing their student ID. Not sure if this is the same or if they need to pick up a ticket in advance. 
3) The ceiling of the Superpit was white (now it is flat black). So it seems much darker now which seems to suck the life out of the place. I don’t think the color of the seats (dark green now vs orange then) is the difference because when the seats are full of people the color of the seats shouldn’t matter. It feels like a morgue now instead of a bright, electric atmosphere. 

I know that filling up the East side with students reduces paid reserved seats, but maybe that would create more of a demand for the reserved seats (and higher prices). 
 

[MeanGreenGlory]

McCasland has done his part to create a great product.

ESPN+ and TV exposure are not to blame for poor attendance. They're good for the program because they allow folks who live more than a couple of hours away to regularly watch games and stay connected with the program. It also provides broader exposure to non-alumni, which is essential if you want to build a name for yourself. Additionally, I recall the Chicago Blackhawks feeling like TV coverage was to blame for their low attendance numbers sometime in the 2010s so they effectively eliminated televising their games for a while. The result was the opposite of what they anticipated and I am pretty sure game attendance plateaued or dropped. One reason being: If you aren't a season ticket holder and you can't watch the first four games of the season on TV, you don't develop much of a relationship with the team and there's not much that will inspire you to go see game five, six, seven, eight, etc. in person. 

At this point, lack of attendance falls squarely on the AD. To my knowledge, there has been very little improvement over the past decade regarding advertising and marketing games and the game day experience to students, alumni, and the Denton community. This goes for all sports, but particularly the revenue sports.

Until the AD fully embraces the importance of bringing better marketing efforts in-house, we will continue to see lackluster attendance numbers.

And no, social media posts don't fully qualify to support these efforts. I'm talking about flyers, emails, billboards, text messages, phone calls, campus booths, orientation talks, etc. that explicitly inform our audience about games with a clear call to action to get tickets and show up in person.

After all, how can a consumer be expected to purchase a product they don't know about?

[RBP79]

4 minutes ago, UNT74HM said:

I’m 75 years old so correct me if l’m not remembering the following the following correctly. When I was finishing my degree in early 1970’s, I attended many basketball games in the super pit. I saw attendance at 9000 or so for several games when Bill Blakely was coach even though UNT (and Denton) was smaller. Two or three differences I remember: 

1) Students could sit anywhere on the East side and reserved was on the West side. 
2) Students could simply walk in by showing their student ID. Not sure if this is the same or if they need to pick up a ticket in advance. 
3) The ceiling of the Superpit was white (now it is flat black). So it seems much darker now which seems to suck the life out of the place. I don’t think the color of the seats (dark green now vs orange then) is the difference because when the seats are full of people the color of the seats shouldn’t matter. It feels like a morgue now instead of a bright, electric atmosphere. 

I know that filling up the East side with students reduces paid reserved seats, but maybe that would create more of a demand for the reserved seats (and higher prices). 
 

Student ID got you in...and we sat anywhere on the east side.

[DeepGreen]

It seems that with all of the marketing and IT “gurus” on campus someone would be able to come up with a “on-line” survey for students to give feedback on attending basketball games.  Do they attend, yes or no?  If no, why not?  Get some feedback from the students.  It would be interesting to see how many respond.

Wouldn’t this be doable?

[MeanGreenGlory]

4 minutes ago, DeepGreen said:

It seems that with all of the marketing and IT “gurus” on campus someone would be able to come up with a “on-line” survey for students to give feedback on attending basketball games.  Do they attend, yes or no?  If no, why not?  Get some feedback from the students.  It would be interesting to see how many respond.

Wouldn’t this be doable?

Yes, if the AD could get access to the student body email list (which I imagine is an ask, but not a huge ask given the president's support of athletics), this is a very simple, doable, and valuable initiative.

[DeepGreen]

Then our new Vice President and Director of Athletics, Jared Mosley, should do his job and get with the President of UNT.  Like yesterday.

[TheColonyEagle]

It was show your student ID to get in forever up to just a few years ago (I was there late 90s early 2000s) They have to remove as many barriers as possible to get the students in. 

The tickets are now mobile. Great, just give the whole season's worth of tickets to every student. A code for free food, whatever. Shouldn't be difficult

[MeanGreenGlory]

Out of curiosity, did anyone receive promotional material for the OSU game? If so, can you please share it?

[meanJewGreen]

As one poster put in an earlier thread, COVID had a lot to do with hurting mid major momentum IMHO. 

I know its 3 years in the future, but I feel like we missed that momentum lift in 2020 and 2021

[Green Otaku]

1 hour ago, meangreenfaninno said:

I respect your opinion, but I think it is important for you and many others to realize this is not just a UNT issue.  What I mean by that is fans today can watch every single game on ESPN plus for 10 bucks a month.  Until that changes it will impact us and every single program in the nation with very few exceptions.  Look at the sparse crowd at the OSU game the other night as an example.  So until you factor that into your analysis, I am sorry but you just can’t be taken seriously.

OSU's arena seats 13.6k. This year's attendance:

UTA: 5,324

S. Illinois: 5,324

Tulsa: 9,856

PV A&M: 5,683

SHSU: 5,368

AMCC: 6,007

WV: 6,134

Texas: 7,369

OU: 10,789

ISU: 6,656

Ol Miss: 9,973

TCU: 9,581

TT: 7,467

KU: 11,165

KSU: 11,124

Baylor: 7,965

EWU: 4,978

UNT: 4,807

=124,446 

Season average= 6,914

They averaged 50.64% capacity on the season on a year they finished 20-16. Yes they are in the Big12 and get boosts from opponents, but we who are 29-7 and finished the year at 3,611. 34.38% capacity on our best season of all time. On a bad year they are still outdrawing us by 15%. The only time I can see that they've had a similar record to what we had this year was 20-21 where they finished 21-9 but covid happened. The other year is 2012-13 where they finished 24-9, they averaged 9,814. 

[MeanGreen22]

I’m a very loud proponent of fix the game atmosphere and you’ll solve a lot of the issues. You may only have one shot to convince a fan, alumni, student, etc to come back. If the place isn’t rocking, you missed an opportunity to excite someone. 

[NorthTexasWeLove]

6 hours ago, MeanGreenGlory said:

McCasland has done his part to create a great product.

ESPN+ and TV exposure are not to blame for poor attendance. They're good for the program because they allow folks who live more than a couple of hours away to regularly watch games and stay connected with the program. It also provides broader exposure to non-alumni, which is essential if you want to build a name for yourself. Additionally, I recall the Chicago Blackhawks feeling like TV coverage was to blame for their low attendance numbers sometime in the 2010s so they effectively eliminated televising their games for a while. The result was the opposite of what they anticipated and I am pretty sure game attendance plateaued or dropped. One reason being: If you aren't a season ticket holder and you can't watch the first four games of the season on TV, you don't develop much of a relationship with the team and there's not much that will inspire you to go see game five, six, seven, eight, etc. in person. 

At this point, lack of attendance falls squarely on the AD. To my knowledge, there has been very little improvement over the past decade regarding advertising and marketing games and the game day experience to students, alumni, and the Denton community. This goes for all sports, but particularly the revenue sports.

Until the AD fully embraces the importance of bringing better marketing efforts in-house, we will continue to see lackluster attendance numbers.

And no, social media posts don't fully qualify to support these efforts. I'm talking about flyers, emails, billboards, text messages, phone calls, campus booths, orientation talks, etc. that explicitly inform our audience about games with a clear call to action to get tickets and show up in person.

After all, how can a consumer be expected to purchase a product they don't know about?

This. 

Marketing sucks at UNT. It takes money to make money. And UNT clearly doesn't want to make money. 

[GreenGuy123]

I think scheduling and CUSA has a bit to do with it. If we play closer or more well known schools at home, we’ll get better crowds. CUSA is one of the best mid majors in terms of basketball, this year, and in the past couple of years, but sucks at marketing or negotiation. But our program has to take the next step. Winning the NIT will help. The AAC will help. But we can’t squander this incremental stream of success. That’s what people expect from UNT based on our history. We need to continue to build, at the current rate, as we have been. If we do that, we’ll be fine. 

[Green Otaku]

1 hour ago, GreenGuy123 said:

I think scheduling and CUSA has a bit to do with it. If we play closer or more well known schools at home, we’ll get better crowds. CUSA is one of the best mid majors in terms of basketball, this year, and in the past couple of years, but sucks at marketing or negotiation. But our program has to take the next step. Winning the NIT will help. The AAC will help. But we can’t squander this incremental stream of success. That’s what people expect from UNT based on our history. We need to continue to build, at the current rate, as we have been. If we do that, we’ll be fine. 

The new conference will help, but let's stop hoping our opponent raises our attendance and instead be the team that raises other team's attendance. 

Also I don't know what closer schools you would want us to play. Which schools would those be? 

[TIgreen01]

I contend that this year's home schedule was the worst we’ve ever had.  Especially the lack of any marquee games and weak weekend schedule.  Look at the huge gaps in between weekend home games until late in the season. I’ll list only the games we hosted on a weekend:

Nov 19 - Fresno st

Dec 3 - Omaha

Dec 31 - FIU

Jan 28 - UTEP

Feb 11 - Charlotte

Mar 4 - WKU

Fresno, UTEP and WKU are the decent games on that schedule and both WKU and UTEP had down years.  Can’t blame the AD for those teams not meeting expectations, but that schedule is still terrible.  We cannot expect to draw people who work in Dallas and Ft Worth for Thursday night games.  I couldn’t make a single one this year.  We got FAU, LaTech and UAB on weeknights this year.  

This has to get better next year in the AAC from a marquee point of view, but the AD needs to get more and better games on the weekend so the 4 pack sells itself.  I’d like to see us work out a long term scheduling deal with LaTech.  Those games are always great and they bring people, adding to the atmosphere.  When we find natural rivalries we need to foster them, regardless of conference affiliation.

Edited March 25, 2023 by TIgreen01

[NorthTexasWeLove]

7 minutes ago, TIgreen01 said:

I contend that this year's home schedule was the worst we’ve ever had.  Especially the lack of any marquee games and weak weekend schedule.  Look at the huge gaps in between weekend home games until late in the season. I’ll list only the games we hosted on a weekend:

Nov 19 - Fresno st

Dec 3 - Omaha

Dec 31 - FIU

Jan 28 - UTEP

Feb 11 - Charlotte

Mar 4 - WKU

Fresno, UTEP and WKU are the decent games on that schedule and both WKU and UTEP had down years.  Can’t blame the AD for those teams not meeting expectations, but that schedule is still terrible.  We cannot expect to draw people who work in Dallas and Ft Worth for Thursday night games.  I couldn’t make a single one this year.  We got FAU, LaTech and UAB on weeknights this year.  

This has to get better next year in the AAC from a marquee point of view, but the AD needs to get more and better games on the weekend so the 4 pack sells itself.

Sure, this plays a role. 

But it's nowhere near the root problem. I think we need to breakout a venn diagram to really unpack what's happening. 

[CMJ]

The Thursday night excuse only works so far.  Every school in America has to play some weekday games.  

[TIgreen01]

4 minutes ago, CMJ said:

The Thursday night excuse only works so far.  Every school in America has to play some weekday games.  

Agree…but you have to try to lineup your biggest draws on weekends.  That’s where you make money.  
 

Football attendance was also terrible this year.  So I tend to agree we have a broader problem around marketing, first, and then making it easy for students to attend.

Edited March 25, 2023 by TIgreen01

[Marty]

How do you lose 2000 from the Alcorn game? I was at the game, there were more than 2100 in attendance.

[CMJ]

I'm not sure if that is true nationwide.  I know "big name" programs and all that, but watching on TV I don't see much of a difference in attendance between weekday and weekend games.