UW's average number of tickets scanned for 18 men's games this past season was 11,870, a 10% dropUniv. Of Wisconsin
The first losing season in 20 years for Wisconsin men's basketball "brought new lows in ticket usage" for the program, according to Todd Milewski of the WISCONSIN STATE JOURNAL. UW had an average of "fewer than 12,000 fans" at the Kohl Center for regular-season home games, and UW "didn't have a single crowd reaching 15,000 spectators." The school reported a "season average attendance of 17,272, just 15 shy of a sellout and a figure that ranked first in the Big Ten Conference and fourth nationally." However, that represents the "number of tickets sold or distributed for games." The average number of tickets "scanned for the 18 regular-season men's basketball home games was 11,870," a 10% drop from the average for the previous 11 seasons on record. On average, there were 5,402 "no-shows per game, more than 600 higher than the closest previous season" (WISCONSIN STATE JOURNAL, 4/4). Meanwhile, Milewski notes over 15 regular-season home games in the '17-18 season, UW's women's basketball team "listed an average attendance of 3,703." That ranked 28th of 349 D-I teams, and "seventh of 14 in the Big Ten." But nearly two-thirds of the announced attendance figure "never entered the Kohl Center." According to UW's athletic department, an average of only 1,308 spectators "were on hand" for women's basketball games in '17-18. That average was up 2% over the '16-17 figure of 1,278, which "stands as the lowest in 12 years since UW started using digital scanners" in '06 (WISCONSIN STATE JOURNAL, 4/4).
