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Some hoops programs buck attendance trend

Just five years ago, University of Nebraska basketball was everything you’d expect at a marquee football school — an afterthought. Crowds at the aging Devaney Sports Center averaged fewer than 10,000 and the Cornhuskers ranged from 45th to 50th nationally in men’s basketball attendance.

“Our old facility was next to the fairgrounds and we had flies inside the arena,” said Marc Boehm, the school’s executive associate athletic director, referring to the actual insects, not the number of

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SBJ Podcast:
College writer Michael Smith and editor Tom Stinson discuss college basketball attendance being down for the seventh straight year and how schools such as Nebraska, N.C. State and Syracuse have bucked the trend.

fans. “We had no center-hung scoreboard. We had no sound effects. We knew we had a ton of work to do.”

Fast forward to this season and Nebraska basketball, which is averaging 15,550 fans at home, is breaking all of the trends associated with college basketball attendance.

AVERAGE DIVISION I HOME ATTENDANCE
SEASON SCHOOLS AVG. ATTEND.* CHANGE
2013-14 345 4,817 -104
2012-13 345 4,921 -73
2011-12 338 4,994 -31
2010-11 335 5,025 -13
2009-10 334 5,038 -147
2008-09 330 5,185 -140
2007-08 328 5,325 -2
2006-07 325 5,327 +129
2005-06 326 5,198 +103
2004-05 326 5,095 -59
ANNUAL ATTENDANCE LEADER
SEASON SCHOOL AVG. ATTEND.*
2014-15 Syracuse 23,767
2013-14 Syracuse 26,253
2012-13 Kentucky 23,099
2011-12 Kentucky 23,721
2010-11 Kentucky 23,603
2009-10 Kentucky 24,111
2008-09 Kentucky 22,239
2007-08 Kentucky 22,554
2006-07 Kentucky 23,421
2005-06 Kentucky 22,763
2004-05 Syracuse 22,978
TOP SCHOOLS
SCHOOL 2014-15 2013-14 2013-14 RANK
1. Syracuse 23,767 26,253 1
2. Kentucky 23,472 22,964 2
3. Louisville 21,325 21,282 3
4. North Carolina 19,427 18,025 4
5. Wisconsin 17,279 17,104 7
6. Creighton 17,115 17,896 5
7. Kansas 16,395 16,437 9
8. Indiana 16,149 17,359 6
9. BYU 16,125 15,875 11
10. Arkansas 15,600 14,023 21
11. Nebraska 15,550 15,419 13
12. N.C. State 15,267 12,641 25
13. Tennessee 15,103 15,475 12
14. Michigan State 14,797 14,797 18
15. Arizona 14,582 14,375 19
16. New Mexico 14,510 15,212 16
17. Ohio State 14,424 16,474 8
18. Illinois 14,420 15,246 15
19. Iowa State 14,282 14,192 20
20. Iowa 13,974 14,976 17
21. Memphis 13,761 16,121 10
22. Virginia 13,617 11,684 30
23. Marquette 13,469 15,327 14
24. Dayton 12,664 12,316 28
25. Kansas State 12,551 12,125 29
26. San Diego State 12,414 12,414 27
27. Maryland 12,403 12,557 26
28. Michigan 12,314 12,698 24
29. UNLV 12,100 13,125 22
30. Minnesota 12,022 11,255 32
31. Utah 11,758 10,311 38
32. South Carolina 11,445 10,074 41
33. Purdue 11,276 12,738 23
34. Texas 11,144 10,186 39
35. UConn 11,041 10,134 40
36. Oklahoma 10,945 10,968 34
37. Wichita State 10,827 10,732 36
38. Alabama 10,696 10,754 35
39. Florida 10,612 11,471 31
40. Pittsburgh 10,414 11,004 33
41. West Virginia 9,937 8,594 52
42. Xavier 9,982 9,890 42
43. Wake Forest 9,591 9,000 47
44. Colorado 9,558 9,635 44
45. Duke 9,314 9,314 46
46. Georgetown 9,312 8,670 51
47. Villanova 8,988 8,943 48
48. Cincinnati 9,114 8,567 53
49. Utah State 9,054 9,829 43
50. Vanderbilt 9,010 9,534 45
*Through Feb. 24
The average Division I men’s basketball crowd has declined for seven straight seasons (see chart). Of the top 70 schools in average attendance, 38 are suffering attendance losses this season, while 29 have seen attendance gains. Three are flat.

But Nebraska, despite its profile as a football school, is one of those programs where basketball attendance is flourishing. Inside the sparkling $179 million Pinnacle Bank Arena, which opened in Lincoln in 2013, the Huskers routinely draw crowds in excess of the 15,147-seat capacity.

What’s more amazing is that people are showing up in increased numbers even though the team isn’t that good, just a few spots out of the Big Ten’s basement. Coach Tim Miles recently became so infuriated with his team that he banned the players from their spiffy new locker room because of their poor play. But that hasn’t stopped fans from coming in droves.

“We’ve come a long way,” Boehm said.

College basketball’s regular-season attendance problem is well-chronicled. Most eyeballs stay on football through January and nearly every basketball game, certainly those in the five major conferences, is televised, making it easy for the fan to catch all of the games on the flat screen at home.

“You’re seeing a lot of the same challenges in basketball that we see in other sports, college or pro,” said Chris Boyer, senior associate AD at North Carolina State, which is one of the schools enjoying an attendance resurgence this season. “One of our big challenges in the ACC is that we play on almost any night of the week, some as late as 9 p.m.”

Despite the overall drop in attendance, some success stories like those at Nebraska and N.C. State have emerged. And some industry experts — such as Brad Sexton, national sales director for IMG Learfield Ticket Solutions — think the sales declines might be stemming.

A closer look at the top 50 in attendance shows that 25 of the schools are seeing an attendance increase. The 28 schools that work with IMG Learfield have experienced a 2.5 percent increase in attendance with a handful of conference games to go that could drive the increase as high as 5 percent.

The Cornhuskers could finish in the top 10 in attendance for the first time — as of Feb. 24, they were 11th. The Wolfpack has risen from 25th to 12th nationally, averaging more than 15,000 fans. Arkansas has made a similar jump in the attendance rankings.

The NCAA will calculate final attendance numbers for Division I after the season.

“We’ve been working with a lot of our schools to start selling season tickets earlier in the year,” said Sexton, whose firm represents N.C. State, among others. “Many schools don’t start selling basketball until July or August and our mentality is ‘Don’t delay.’ Begin that sales push earlier. Selling football and basketball together earlier in the year also gives you more of an opportunity to cross sell.”

Attendance gains typically can be traced to three factors — the building, the coach and the schedule.

The Cornhuskers’ story revolves around two of those. They play in a new building that offers amenities that couldn’t be found in the Devaney Sports Center. And Miles, who was hired in 2012, is active on Twitter, going to great lengths to establish a relationship with the fan base. His 81,500 followers are fifth-most among major college coaches and that rapport has helped Nebraska withstand a down season while increasing its average attendance year over year.

“Tim is like the guy next door and I think that’s why people are staying engaged,” Boehm said.

The Huskers’ athletic department also worked on the fan experience at their games. They put $250,000 toward enhancing the original lighting structure in the new arena, and a center-hung scoreboard gives them flexibility to do more with video to entertain the audience. They hired an audio expert as well to get the most out of the sound system inside Pinnacle Bank Arena.

“The whole feel of a Nebraska basketball game has changed,” Boehm said. “We’ve spent a lot on videos and video production, we’ve brought in singers for the national anthem and we’ve got Wi-Fi. We’ve seen the biggest jump with families, especially in the upper seating.”

Another game changer came in the form of basketball-specific donations, which led Nebraska to segment its fans in ways it never had before.

In the past, donors were able to apply their football donation toward better basketball seats. That led to a lot of empty seats in prime locations because those football fans weren’t consistently showing up for basketball games. The Huskers changed the policy when they moved into the new arena last season. Basketball tickets now require basketball-specific donations, which put the basketball enthusiast in the better seats.

The Huskers have seen their basketball revenue nearly double in the two seasons they’ve been in Pinnacle Bank Arena, surging from $2.5 million in tickets and donations to just under $5 million.

“Now we’re getting more pure basketball fans in the arena,” Boehm said. “We’re giving them prime seats and they’re not just coming for the conference games, they’re coming for the nonconference games, too.”

Sexton said larger schools that rely on fans to travel three to four hours each way for football games can’t expect those same fans to make that trek for basketball. That was the case when Sexton worked for the Penn State property, “where you have to look at the football and basketball fan bases completely different,” he said.

N.C. State’s story is a combination of better home scheduling, higher fan expectations for the season and a blanketed marketing approach that tied together communications, social media, marketing and sales.

The Wolfpack averaged 12,641 during a disappointing 2013-14 campaign, but they’ve rallied to draw 15,267 this season.

With both Duke and North Carolina on the home schedule, N.C. State administrators expected a bump. They also have benefited by having six of their nine ACC games on Saturdays, which are historically better draws than weeknights.

In order to capitalize on the Duke and UNC games at home, the Wolfpack increased the number of mini-packs it sold. The Duke and UNC games were included in some of the mini-packs, which made them big sellers, Boyer said, and helped move tickets for other games in the package.

With season-ticket sales at more than 10,000, the Wolfpack can expect its basketball revenue to increase by mid-to-high six figures.

“With Duke and Carolina at home this year, we knew we had a very attractive home schedule,” Boyer said. “We just had to do our job and get the word out, price it right, and the fans have responded.”

Source: School websites, as compiled by SportsBusiness Journal

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