Attendance nationwide

[TulsaWarrior]

Marquette has done pretty well compared to what is happening in Oklahoma and nationwide.

http://www.tulsaworld.com/sportsextr...1_CUTLIN978630

[Goose85]

Interesting read Tulsa. The Thunder will be a show as long as Durant is there.

I don't get big schools like Oklahoma and Oklahoma State. I've said it before, but you only get 4 years as a student. Big time basketball and football are big social events and student tickets are usually very reasonable. I understand a guy taking his kid to a Thunder game, not sure why students are staying away from games this year in droves.

[IWB]

It is amazing, but not shocking when you look at the soaring prices vs the economy. Teams/programs are finding ways to add additional charges while the average fan has less and less to spend.

Looking at the article, the OKC Thunder and Oral Roberts are the only ones that are up, but that is off of last year, they still aren't where they were a few years ago.

Along the same lines but a different angle, is the Sun Times article yesterday about the drop off in basketball in Illinois. Wow - out of the 13 Division 1 schools in Illinois, only one has a winning record in their conference this year....

• Illinois State (9-9) in the Missouri Valley
  
  
• Illinois (6-11) and Northwestern (7-10) in the Big 10
• DePaul (2-15) in the Big East
• Loyola (1-17) and UIC (3-15) in the Horizon League
• Northern Illinois (2-12) in the MAC West
• Bradley (2-16) and Southern Illinois (5-13) in the Missouri Valley
• Chicago State (2-7) in the Great West
• Eastern Illinois (5-11) and SIU-Edwardsville (6-10) in the Ohio Valley

The article talks about the success of close distance schools like Marquette, Notre Dame, UWM, Butler and Valpo, while schools like Illinois underachieves, DePaul hasn't been good in years and UIC, Loyola and Northern Ill seem to be running in place.

[CaribouJim]

...and it still drives me crazy how little coverage that both Chicago papers give MU. Often there will be zero mention of MU other than the score and maybe, just maybe a sentence in the "Other Games" at the bottom of an article about UIC or something. Almost never a box score whereas you'll have UIC, Loyola, N. Illinois and you look at the attendence and it is 2,000 max and sometimes less than a 1,000. When MU grad Mike McGrath left the Trib as their sports editor their coverage really nosedived.

I'd love to know what the number of MU season tickets that are from the Chicago area. I would think it is easily in the 1,000 - 1,500 range. Maybe Joe True can has that # and I'll send something to their sports editors for next year. It bugs the crap out of me.

[MayorBeluga]

... It bugs the crap out of me.

And on behalf of the entire Fighting 218, we'd prefer that Caribou keep his crap (and show tunes) inside.

[IWB]

Agree - but how would you like to be DePaul? One of ESPN's major regional websites, ESPN Chicago, has the following icon logos at the top to click on....

Bears - Bulls - Cubs - White Sox - Blackhawks - Fire(indoor soccer) - Sky(WNBA) - Illinois - Northwestern - and.....Notre Dame

Really? Notre Dame but not DePaul? Yes, they have been terrible since joining the Big East, but maybe they could turn it around with a little local help?

Going to college in Iowa with a lot of friends from Chicago it always bothered me, as by the way they talked, you would think that Notre Dame was right down in the heart of the loop, or in between Soldier's Field and the Aquarium at the very least. But, check mapquest, Marquette is closer to Chicago than Notre Dame. 95 miles away in a different state, and they get top billing on ESPN's website over local teams in the same conference (I know, only basketball).

UWM gets the same treatment here. They had a Horizon League Tournament game AT HOME this week. Who was there from the local media? Gary D'Amato from the JS, 620am's Greg Matzek, 1 student from the school paper and me. Yep, no one from Channel 4, 5, 6 or 12, nobody from FSN, ESPN radio, WSSP.... no one from any of the smaller local publications. Nobody. March Madness, Horizon League Tournament game.... 1 newspaper, 1 radio, 1 student and me. Nobody else.

[CaribouJim]

...and MU always travels well to the ND games and are loud too. Does ND travel very well to MU - no they don't - typically they are right behind the ND bench looking cranky and are not really loud either. I'm ticked with MU's attendence this year, but ND often is not selling out their place and with the renovation (they did a great job BTW) their capicity is less than 9,000 I think. You have a top 10 or so team this year and still highly ranked attendence wise which denotes high interest and MU gets lousy coverage.

[Goose85]

UWM and DePaul, in some ways the same problem - facility.
Granted UWM is not far from the Cell, but an on campus facility would give them a real campus feel and I'm sure if done well would be a point of campus pride - this could translate to increased fans. Begin to build some type of tradition.

DePaul - they have to be really, really good for students and fans in general to make the treck in some of the countries worst rush hour traffic, out to the old Rosemont Horizon.

When Duke has been selling only 1/2 its student allotment of tickets something is off.

Bigger issue - what would happen to schools (football and hoops) that depend on big crowds, many of which paying a seat license, if attendance fell off? I think MU hoops and Wisconsin football. You beging to budget thinking attendance will always be incredible (and yes, nationally MU has incredible attendance given school size - partially because of the facility). Hopefully that stays the course (MU staying in the Big East helps that).

[Goose85]

And on behalf of the entire Fighting 218, we'd prefer that Caribou keep his crap (and show tunes) inside.

Show tunes, is that how CaribouJim gets all those leggy supermodels?

[CaribouJim]

Show tunes have and always will be a contributing factor to my high success ratio.