1) Big Ten
2) SEC
3) ACC
4) Big 12
5) Big East

http://www.ncaa.com/news/basketball-men/article/2016-06-07/mens-basketball-attendance-tops-32-million-10th-straight-year

This is interesting. I remember someone remarking that teams like Bama, who haven't been really good recently, still consistently have larger crowds than us. That being said, it seems the SEC at large has impressive attendance despite not being a top conference.

Kentucky - #1 in nation 24k per game
Arkansas - #12 @ 15k per game
Tennessee - #17 @ 14k
Alabama - #22 @ 13k
USC - #31 @ 12k
LSU - #35 @ 11k
Vandy - #35 @11k
Florida - #45 @ 10k
A&M - #51 @ 9k

2016 NCAAB Attendance

The stability of Arkansas basketball fans is simply amazing.

There's really not a whole lot to do in Arkansas

Well, the product is going to be good next year so it's up to administration to do something about the numbers.

These numbers are a joke. I know that many schools report paid attendance as opposed to actual butts in the seats, but I was at the Alabama game and there couldn't have been more than 3000 in the gym. They listed the attendance as over 11K.

If the tickets are bought, it counts, why not?

The SEC and A&M are going to be a dominant player in basketball within 5 to 7 years, book it.

And what is it about the state of Kentucky and basketball? Kentucky no. 1 and Louisville no. 3.

I would imagine that if you are posting attendance numbers you might want to count the people who actually bothered to ATTEND... You can take one look at that list and immediately identify the schools who have posted BS numbers.

I cant. Which are they?

No NBA in Kentucky, Arkansas, Alabama, Tennessee, and South Carolina..

That must have been quite the civil engineering feat to move the entire city of Memphis.

Also, I'm not buying that NBA is affecting our attendance numbers.

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That must have been quite the civil engineering feat to move the entire city of Memphis.

Also, I'm not buying that NBA is affecting our attendance numbers.

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I think our numbers are what they are due to:
1. Student indifference
2. Poor marketing
3. Subpar gameday experience at Reed (although this has marginally improved)
4. Difficulty getting to College Station for weekday games after work from Houston and Dallas
5. Lack of consistent success on the court
6. General apathy towards attending sporting events in person (other than football)
7. Extremely high season ticket prices in the good seating areas that keeps them filled up with primarily the elderly locals or retired folks from Houston (this contributes to item 2)
8. (in response to your comment about NBA) Plethora of entertainment alternatives in Houston, Dallas, and College Station. Not limited to the NBA, just generally. When UK plays a basketball game it's the biggest event of any kind in the state...not so much when we do.

The "poor marketing" thing I always find interesting because I don't think that's true. What would be an example of better marketing?

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The "poor marketing" thing I always find interesting because I don't think that's true. What would be an example of better marketing?

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Doing what they did when I was in school and having people write the game time and get to Reed on all the chalkboards in all the classrooms. E-mailing awesome desktop wallpapers of the A&M basketball schedule to everyone on the 12th man distribution. Tweeting out the same. Holding more events on campus throughout the year for locals and students to meet and interact with the coaches and players. Starting a student priority point system whereby the students that attend basketball and other sporting events other than football get better football seats. Doing more promotions/giveaways for games and advertising those around campus and in general student e-mail distributions. Giving away free basketball schedule refrigerator magnets to all students on campus.

Some of that is just doing more of what they are already doing. The basis for my comment is sometimes when I text current students I'm recruiting to come work at my company if they are going to the game tonight, that they ask "what game?". Even guys on the football team will ask who are we playing tonight. If the vast majority of students on campus can't tell you who we are playing that day and at what time, there is room for improvement in the marketing.

My argument would be that the average student just doesn't really care. There's only so much marketing you can do if your consumer base doesn't care about your product. How do you make someone care about basketball? Especially against teams we have zero history with.

I do think perhaps they lean on social media a little too much and could use some more real-world marketing, but overall I think they do a really good job.

This isn't a new problem. Even in 2007 there were a couple games that had absolutely pathetic student crowds.

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The "poor marketing" thing I always find interesting because I don't think that's true. What would be an example of better marketing?

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What marketing is there to the local community? Do we do any reaching out to local clubs, sports leagues, schools, retail/stores, etc? This was brought up to the previous AD regime, and the attitude was, 'we do promotions'...yes, but do people know about these promotions? Are we actively connecting people to these opportunities? That's a question that never gets answered/solved.

This would especially help for early non-con games.

I don't work in the athletic department so I'm not sure what sort of community outreach they do, so maybe someone else can share on here.

A lot of that should be on the coach though. Gary Blair has done a great job of going out into the community and building those relationships. If we had a good basketball coach stay long enough to do the same maybe it would help.

So up until a couple years ago, I know the answer is 'zero'.

I know more than one person that have sat down with them, but the answer is always the same. 'We run promotions, and discount tickets over the holidays, etc'...but there is nothing in place to reach out to the local community.

The students need to do their part, but I sure wish we reached out to the locals more.

I think you're right, that the coaches can do a lot of that. But at the same time, they cant control ticket packages for clubs/schools/leagues, etc...so there is only so much they can do.

Top 5 ways to improve attendance:
1. Win the national championship every year
2. Sell **reasonably priced** alcohol in the arena
3. Decrease season ticket prices
4. Schedule better nonconference home opponents (tu, Baylor, Tech, Duke, Kansas, UCLA, etc...)
5. Improve marketing

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I cant. Which are they?

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Bama, Tennessee and possibly even USC. Traditional football powers with pedestrian hoops programs; particularly after a new coaching hire. They experience a spike in season ticket sales with the excitement of a hire but once fans realize that the team still sucks they stop showing up. Or donors buy seats to improve their status for football as other posters have said.

A bigger fact to consider is % of seats filled vs capacity: 9000 avg att vs 12,500 listed capacity ; in our case, 72% capacity for our games.

For us, that isn't bad; should be better, yes, but not bad.

AA