I used to joke that you know you are a real Mean Green fan if the second (it may even be the first) thing you check in the box score is the attendance number. I look at attendance at our revenue sports as an important (not the only) metric used to measure the performance of our Athletic Director and the Athletic Department as a whole. It's public, it's not hidden or buried in an annual report. It's tangible. We can see it with our own eyes. Of course it would be helpful to know his goals and objectives and strategies and plans for achieving those goals, but that's a separate issue.
We've been on a nice run and upward trajectory in basketball. We have been growing the brand. Ignoring the 7K and 8K outliers, our growth on the attendance front was evidence of this. We were getting 4K+ and 5K+, not every game, but enough to think we may have finally gotten over the hump. 3K+ for a home game regardless of opponent, day of week, weather on anything else was now the floor. Or at least it was. Until this season.
If one of the AD's functions is to get butts in seats, he and his team have failed miserably in my opinion. And all while we are currently 11-0 at home! Just imagine how bad it would be if we had a losing record. Maybe as Rick suggests, all the hand-wringing around attendance and the reasons and excuses is pointless. However, as a proxy for AD performance I think it speaks volumes.
The department has 5 home games remaining on the schedule. Let's see if they are engaged and actually do something to stimulate demand or not.
We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. Please review our full Privacy Policy before using our site.
Recommended Posts