Best attendance

[Flying Dutch Fan]

At the risk of being smitted, I gotta post my annual boast about fan attendance (after all that was the original intent of this board):

The official NCAA attendance stats are out, and Hope lead the nation in attendance for the fourth year in a row, with an average home attendance of 2928 (up from 2462 a year ago - gotta love the DeVos).  IWU was second with 2470 and Calvin third with 2089.  Hope's average would have ranked them 4th in DII, and 169th in DI (meaning they out-drew 165 DI teams).

The MIAA once again lead the nation (for the 15th consecutive year) as a conference in DIII, with an average of 1234.  The CCIW was second at 866.  Pretty amazing that the MIAA has a nearly 400 per game attendance lead over the next place conference!!

Another amazing thing is that the Hope women averaged 1329, which would have placed them (versus the men) in 8th place in DIII,  and higher than 56 DI mens teams.  Given their awesome year and the national championship (and the DeVos), it will be interesting to see if that number goes up next year.


And here is the link to all the data.

http://www.ncaa.org/stats/m_basketball/attendance/2006_basketball_attend.pdf

[diehardfan]

Huh... earlier today it linked to the right document, now it's linking to the wrong one. 

I suppose it's for the best... Wheaton has historically been in the top 20 for attendance, hitting a high of 7th in 2003. This year we weren't even in the top 30. 

No smiting FDF... we appreciate all input on all forms of attendance on this board.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

I think that FDF's post sums up exactly why this board was confiscated.  Hope seems to have a hammerlock on the attendance thing, a subject which is rather difficult to debate, what with all the numbers and things.

[diehardfan]

It's only difficult if you only care about #1-3, which will always be Hope, Calvin, and IWU in some order. On the otherhand, the complete top 30 list from year to year IS interesting. For example, if I remember correctly, Lawrence came in at #7 this year for attendance. Considering the fact that they have a teensy gym, that's pretty amazing! Wittenburg, which has a large gym, was ranked well behind at 11th.

It's more interesting than most of the stuff we have to discuss during the off season anyway. 

I got a email back from the NCAA webmaster already, which is a pretty amazing timeframe. They are working on the problem, and I'm sure it will be fixed shortly, since it involves DI stats too. 

[Flying Dutch Fan]

I've been thinking it would be fun to take the top 30, and find out what all the gym capacities are (I may do it in my spare time).  I think a ranking based on percent of capacity would be a better (or at least more interesting) measure of attendance.

[diehardfan]

Well, that could definitely be interesting, but considering the fact that half the games aren't played in the home gym, I'm not sure how much sense it would make.

It also unfairly helps to have another high attending fan base in conference. Augustana who was in the top 30 this year is obviously helped by the IWU fans, especially when counting the conference tournament being played at Augie. Calvin and Hope being in the same conference is an even more obvious option.

[Flying Dutch Fan]

Alice (if that is your real name -  ) - you make some good points, but all of the attendance numbers are based on home games only - so the comparison is still valid.  Yes, there are some who benefit from rivalries, but considering the fact that Calvin has a gym that seats 1100 more than Hope, why don't they outdraw Hope?

Anyway, here it is (I will admit I find it hard to believe that Lawrence averaged over 100% capacity):

School	Average	Capacity	% Capacity
Lawrence	1297	1280	101.3%
Ill. Wesleyan	2470	2600	95.0%
Hope	2928	3400	86.1%
Maryville (Tenn.)	1294	2000	64.7%
New York U.	1114	1900	58.6%
Wartburg	1068	1850	57.7%
Lincoln (Pa.)	1390	2500	55.6%
Lebanon Valley	900	1650	54.5%
Whitworth	875	1620	54.0%
Wis.-Stout	1146	2200	52.1%
Wis.-Stevens Point	1377	2800	49.2%
Wooster	1666	3400	49.0%
Chris. Newport	1089	2300	47.3%
Calvin	2089	4500	46.4%
Willamette	1187	2600	45.6%
Capital	936	2100	44.6%
Otterbein	1359	3100	43.8%
Wis.-Whitewater	1004	2300	43.7%
St. Thomas (Minn.)	942	2250	41.9%
Wis.-Platteville	912	2300	39.7%
Wittenberg	1178	3000	39.3%
Augustana (Ill.)	1057	3200	33.0%
Mississippi Col.	1099	3500	31.4%
Buena Vista	1035	3500	29.6%
Baldwin-Wallace	878	3000	29.3%
Puget Sound	1140	4000	28.5%
Fredonia St.	917	3300	27.8%
Howard Payne	889	4500	19.8%
Louisiana Col.	827	4200	19.7%
Muskingum	996	n/a	n/a

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

That seems about right seeing as how Lawrence has a decent amount of room for standing around and the mythical "temporary bleachers" that were spoken of on the MWC board.

[diehardfan]

Augustana's gym seats 3200? Huh? All I have to say is, "yeah, right."

Alice (if that is your real name -  )

See CCIW board. 

That seems about right seeing as how Lawrence has a decent amount of room for standing around and the mythical "temporary bleachers" that were spoken of on the MWC board.

Well, also the fact that their capacity got reduced during the playoffs. AND THE FACT THAT THEY PLAY AT OTHER SCHOOLS.... 

[Mr. Ypsi]

Attendance numbers are notoriously suspect at many (most?) schools, since attendance is often free (at least for students).

If you subtract the IWU numbers (probably pretty solid) and Augustana numbers (of unknown accuracy) from the CCIW total, the other six schools averaged only 566.  Maybe, but I doubt it.  (If I remember correctly, it has been posted on CCIW Chat that some schools are WAY low because some games were not recorded at all and were thus counted a zero when the average was computed across all games.)

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

That's true.  I've never seen counts anywhere close to accurate from any New England school.  Not that we would ever approach the top 30 in attendance anyway, but still, the counts are never right.

Plenty of small schools count everyone in the building, which improves attendance, especially when the baseball team is working out in the weight room.

[Gregory Sager]

Attendance numbers are notoriously suspect at many (most?) schools, since attendance is often free (at least for students).

If you subtract the IWU numbers (probably pretty solid) and Augustana numbers (of unknown accuracy) from the CCIW total, the other six schools averaged only 566.  Maybe, but I doubt it.  (If I remember correctly, it has been posted on CCIW Chat that some schools are WAY low because some games were not recorded at all and were thus counted a zero when the average was computed across all games.)

Quite right on all counts, Chuck. Take NPU's numbers, for example. One home game (vs. Concordia WI) had no attendance mark listed at all, which meant that a zero got computed into the final total. The attendance that night was actually about 450 or so. Several of NPU's CCIW home games had pretty suspect numbers. As two of the people who have kept book for NPU basketball games (men and women), Mr. B and I have discussed the capacity of the crackerbox at length. We agree that it's barely 1,100 at best. None of North Park's past few SIDs have seemed to have a handle on this, however, as the highly-exaggerated 1,500 figure is often used for a full house. The home game against Wheaton this past season has a 1,500 attendance mark listed; every seat wasn't even full that night. I'd bet the farm that the Wheaton game drew somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,000. The game against Carthage (listed at 1,200) actually drew about 950 people, and the Illinois Wesleyan game (listed at 1,000) drew maybe 875. Millikin, whose recordkeeping with regard to attendance is even more traditionally erratic than North Park's, didn't list an attendance figure for the Big Blue's home game against Augustana. So that game got added in as a zero as well.

I'd put more stock in Augustana's attendance figures than the ones listed by most other D3 schools. Augie SID Dave Wrath is an expert at eyeballing a crowd and coming up with a pretty accurate headcount. Carthage SID Steve Marovich is very good at that as well, as is Wheaton's SID Brett Marhanka.

The attendance discussion is a lot like the Academic All-American discussion, in that the fanbases of the schools that do well in either category tend to take a lot of pride in that success but don't always realize that a lot of schools don't bother to take the process seriously by (in the case of attendance) performing proper recordkeeping or (in the case of A A-A) submitting the necessary paperwork, thereby skewing the field in both categories.

[diehardfan]

AND THE FACT THAT THEY PLAY AT OTHER SCHOOLS.... 

Yeah, so, just noticed that the numbers were all home games. 

Oooops! 

[Flying Dutch Fan]

Augustana's gym seats 3200? Huh? All I have to say is, "yeah, right."

You'll have to take that up with Pat - I used the figures from the individual school's pages on this site.

That's true. I've never seen counts anywhere close to accurate from any New England school. Not that we would ever approach the top 30 in attendance anyway, but still, the counts are never right.

Plenty of small schools count everyone in the building, which improves attendance, especially when the baseball team is working out in the weight room.

I don't doubt it.  I can tell you that Hope's numbers should be quite accurate, as they actually use the little hand-held counter thingies when you pass through the ticket taking area.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

I don't doubt it.  I can tell you that Hope's numbers should be quite accurate, as they actually use the little hand-held counter thingies when you pass through the ticket taking area.

That's another thing.  If you had to pay to see most of the teams in NE, there would be no attendance.