2018 - 2019 Horizon League Attendance Figures

[wsuraider09]

The following is an in-depth analysis of the Horizon League regular season attendance figures. If you don't want to read the entire analysis, here's a quick summary.

The Good:

Wright State - The Raiders continued the trend of being the hottest ticket in the league, averaging more fans per night than 5 teams got in any one game this season. WSU pretty much cleaned house regarding attendance in all fronts.

Northern Kentucky - The Norse kept it close for a while, but lost ground on the Raiders down the stretch. They had one more home game than the Raiders, and were still a little shy in both average and total attendance. NKU was without question the second best team in home attendance this season.

The Bad: Pretty much everyone else. The average attendance of home games not played at the Nutter Center or BB&T Arena was less than 2000.

The Ugly: Cleveland State - BARELY averaged 1000 fans per game. The Wolstein Center had 4 league games that didn't crack the 1000 attendance mark.

The details:

All attendance figures factored in all home games played at a team's regular home arena. Games denoted as "home" in destination or MTE tournaments were not counted. Furthermore, exhibition games were also thrown out, as most schools did not report attendance figures. To ensure all comparisions were apples to apples, the few that did report were thrown out as well.

Total Home Attendance Averages:

1. Wright State - 4,096
2. Northern Kentucky - 3,594
3. Oakland - 2,922
4. Youngstown State - 2,465
5. UW-Green Bay - 2,198
6. Illinois-Chicago - 2,037
7. Deroit - 1,841
8. UW-Milwaukee - 1,514
9. IUPUI - 1,292
10. Cleveland State - 1,057

Total Attendance (Sum): This was skewed a bit as the disparity in home games was drastic across the league. Home games ranged from NKU's 17 down to Detroit's 13.

1. Wright State - 65,532
2. Northern Kentucky - 61,094
3. Oakland - 46,746
4. Illinois-Chicago - 32,592
5. Youngstown State - 32,043
6. UW-Green Bay - 30,774
7. Detroit - 23,931
8. IUPUI - 21,966
9. UW-Milwaukee - 21,191
10. Cleveland State - 16,904

Top 10 Games - These were not exclusive to Horizon League matches, however, the top 10 just all happened to be league games.

1. Oakland @ Northern Kentucky - 6,792
2. Northern Kentucky @ Wright State - 6,233
3. UW-Green Bay @ Wright State - 6,112
4. Wright State @ Northern Kentucky - 5,848
5. Youngstown State @ Wright State - 5,743
6. Cleveland State @ Northern Kentucky- 5,047
7. Detroit @ Wright State - 5,045
8. Illinois-Chicago @ Youngstown State- 4,917
9. Cleveland State @ Wright State - 4,655
10. UW-Miwlaukee @ Northern Kentucky - 4,225

Homes games in the top 10:

1. Wright State - 5
2. Northern Kentucky - 4
3. Youngstown State - 1
4. All others - 0

Average Total Road Show Up - Avg. number of fans in attendance for any one team's conference road games.

1. Oakland - 3,143
2. Cleveland State - 2,884
3. UW-Milwaukee - 2,687
4. Detroit - 2,602
5. UW-Green Bay - 2,570
6. Illinois-Chicago - 2,528
7. IUPUI - 2,466
8. Northern Kentucky - 2,387
9. Wright State - 2,309
10. Youngstown State - 2,282

Top 10 Best Series: The sum of attendance in both games played between opponents:

1. Wright State & Northern Kentucky - 12,081
2. Northern Kentucky & Oakland - 10,073
3. Wright State & UW-Green Bay - 8,393
4. Detroit & Oakland - 8,266
5. Wright State & Youngstown State - 7,341
6. Wright State & Oakland - 6,988
7. UIC & Youngstown State - 6,943
8. UIC & Oakland - 6,572
9. N. Kentucky & Youngstown State7 - 6,358
10. Wright State & Detriot - 6,288

Home Game Out-Of-Conference Average Attendance:

1. Wright State - 3,354
2. Northern Kentucky - 2,914
3. Oakland - 2,211
4. Youngstown State - 2,049
5. Illinois-Chicago - 1,736
6. UW-Green Bay - 1,551
7. Detroit - 1,384
8. IUPUI - 1,233
9. UW-Milwaukee - 1,215
10. Cleveland State - 978

Home Game In-Conference Average Attendance:

1. Wright State - 4,673
2. Northern Kentucky - 4,205
3. Oakland - 3,416
4. Youngstown State - 2,650
5. UW-Green Bay - 2,557
6. Illinois-Chicago - 2,194
7. Detroit - 2,043
8. UW-Milwaukee - 1,657
9. IUPUI - 1,345
10. Cleveland State - 1,117

Worst Attended Games:

Notre Dame (OH) @ Clev. St. - 724
IPFW @ Clev. St. - 777
UIC @ Clev. St. - 798
Samford @ Clev. St. - 818
NKU @ Clev. St. - 866
Central State @ IUPUI - 875
Detroit @ Clev. St. - 885
Youngstown State @ IUPUI - 890
USF-Brooklyn @ IUPUI - 910
IU-NW @ IUPUI - 927

Highest Attendance Weekend Series For 1 Home Team:

WSU vs. CSU/YSU - 10,398
NKU vs. OAK/DET - 9,817
WSU vs. GB/MIL - 9,581
WSU vs. OAK/DET - 8,543
NKU vs. CSU/YSU - 8,455
NKU vs. GB/MIL - 7,482
WSU vs. UIC/IUPUI - 7,301
OAK vs. WSU/NKU - 6,771
YSU vs. UIC/IUPUI - 6,614
NKU vs. UIC/IUPUI - 6,242

All attendance figures were taken from the official box score from each game.

[jerrygball]

Interesting right up... Thank you for sharing. This league just can't seem to get consistency with enough programs to really build better fan bases.

[raider85]

It's great we're leading the league but averaging 4000 a game is not good people always say if you win people will come where Wright State has been winning the last few years and the average attendance is still not good

[mre]

Winning isn’t good enough. There is entertainment competition in this town for college basketball, so while wins are important, the only thing that truly matters is March Madness. We could win 25 games every year but if we never go to the big dance, attendance won’t increase much. The buzz both locally and nationally that a March Madness appearance creates is what makes fans (or potential fans) want to be a part of something that they see public figures talking highly about. Back to back dances would be a great start!

[Doliboabros]

Mar 3, 2019 10:34:47 GMT -5 mre said:

Winning isn’t good enough. There is entertainment competition in this town for college basketball, so while wins are important, the only thing that truly matters is March Madness. We could win 25 games every year but if we never go to the big dance, attendance won’t increase much.

That's partially true. The other big factor is who you play. Winning 25 games a year in a conference where most of the teams has a losing record hurts attendance. Playing 2 D2 games a year hurts attendance. If we were in the MVC or A-10, I would wager our average attendance would be quite a bit higher.

[raider85]

The at game experience has gone downhill over the last several years. The cheerleaders and dance teams are not near as good as the used to be. Remember the Raider Jam? Some of the women who go with are involved in this type of thing and the always ask why they are not as good. What happened to the green flood lights that lit up the big empty spaces in the corners of the arena? They used to have lighted paw prints go across the floor during introductions, which I though was cool, but they quit doing that. They cheerleaders used to bring out the huge flags about halfway through the second half and they quit doing that. Now none of these things will make me quit coming to games, but it did make for a better atmosphere, and like I said the people I bring notice this stuff

[CincyDrummer]

Mar 3, 2019 11:29:51 GMT -5 raider85 said:

The at game experience has gone downhill over the last several years. The cheerleaders and dance teams are not near as good as the used to be. Remember the Raider Jam? Some of the women who go with are involved in this type of thing and the always ask why they are not as good. What happened to the green flood lights that lit up the big empty spaces in the corners of the arena? They used to have lighted paw prints go across the floor during introductions, which I though was cool, but they quit doing that. They cheerleaders used to bring out the huge flags about halfway through the second half and they quit doing that. Now none of these things will make me quit coming to games, but it did make for a better atmosphere, and like I said the people I bring notice this stuff

I do agree that the little things add up, but by far the best thing we could do for attendance is to consistently beat teams who people know, which is something that the big Ohio basketball teams that average 10,000 fans a game do. No one gets excited or cares when we beat Youngstown State (who??) except the hardest of hardcore fans like us. So to move up to the next level attendance-wise we need to dominate our conference schedule each year (filled with teams that most people don’t know or care about) and consistently grab a few surprise non-conference wins from those teams with name recognition.

I wouldn’t really call myself a baseball fan, but boy do I get excited and interested when I hear that Wright State has beaten nationally ranked #19 so and so, and it actually makes me want to head to Dayton to catch a Wright State baseball game just to see what all the fuss is about. Doing that in basketball, consistently, would have the same affect on lots of people in the Dayton/Cincinnati area.

[raider85]

Mar 3, 2019 17:42:25 GMT -5 CincyDrummer said:

Mar 3, 2019 11:29:51 GMT -5 raider85 said:

The at game experience has gone downhill over the last several years. The cheerleaders and dance teams are not near as good as the used to be. Remember the Raider Jam? Some of the women who go with are involved in this type of thing and the always ask why they are not as good. What happened to the green flood lights that lit up the big empty spaces in the corners of the arena? They used to have lighted paw prints go across the floor during introductions, which I though was cool, but they quit doing that. They cheerleaders used to bring out the huge flags about halfway through the second half and they quit doing that. Now none of these things will make me quit coming to games, but it did make for a better atmosphere, and like I said the people I bring notice this stuff

I do agree that the little things add up, but by far the best thing we could do for attendance is to consistently beat teams who people know, which is something that the big Ohio basketball teams that average 10,000 fans a game do. No one gets excited or cares when we beat Youngstown State (who??) except the hardest of hardcore fans like us. So to move up to the next level attendance-wise we need to dominate our conference schedule each year (filled with teams that most people don’t know or care about) and consistently grab a few surprise non-conference wins from those teams with name recognition.

I wouldn’t really call myself a baseball fan, but boy do I get excited and interested when I hear that Wright State has beaten nationally ranked #19 so and so, and it actually makes me want to head to Dayton to catch a Wright State baseball game just to see what all the fuss is about. Doing that in basketball, consistently, would have the same affect on lots of people in the Dayton/Cincinnati area.

[wsutommygun]

So, CincyDrummer, do you actually go to watch baseball even though the games against nationally ranked teams are most likely on the road?

For basketball, I thought the Toledo game was pretty good as far as a win against the handful of somewhat high profile games. As far as name recognition, you should have heard some of the names from D2 days.

I still think it is a mistake not to get full use out of the pep band, cheerleaders, and a dance team. The women's senior day could have been a lot easier with a better atmosphere ( disappointing student turnout as well ). No complaint about senior day for the guys but, some of the other nights could have been better.

[wsuraider09]

Quarterfinal Attendance:

IUPUI @ WSU : 4,936
UIC @ UW-GB : 1,727

[hhgreen]

Game atmosphere for an important game was dead, but compare it to the rest of the Horizon League and they wish they had 2500 per game. Got to say everyone is down a little bit about this particular cold spell outside as well. Attendance figures at Little Ceasar’s arena will be less than what we had more than likely.

Cheer squad needs to do something new. The HEY signs are stale and nobody gets involved. Someone in marketing needs to go watch a game at a place that has a better atmosphere and figure out something fresh. There are places nearby that do have a better entertainment at time outs and half time. Can we find a better sponsor than a small car wash chain for the gym floor? Can we say cheesy. I know people that have came in and laughed at that. They must have forked out some big money for that to be on our floor🙄.

The product Nagy puts on the floor deserves better and I would hate to see attendance if we had his predecessor there still.

[wsutommygun]

Some schools treat cheerleading as a varsity sport. WSU has never gone that far but, considered part of sports for sure.

Heard Coach Nagy say that Wright State gives him everything to succeed. Nice to hear but, spirit units and a bigger pep band presence can also be a recruiting tool if the atmosphere is exciting at games ( a lot cheaper than some of the other expenses for a basketball program ).

I think the school is making a mistake by not making ( atmosphere ) more of a priority for a true home court advantage. We lost a couple of close ones...who knows. Senior Day for the girls had no pep band and very little energy by the cheerleaders ( shame on lack of students, as well ).

[mre]

Mar 6, 2019 8:30:32 GMT -5 wsutommygun said:

Some schools treat cheerleading as a varsity sport. WSU has never gone that far but, considered part of sports for sure.

Heard Coach Nagy say that Wright State gives him everything to succeed. Nice to hear but, spirit units and a bigger pep band presence can also be a recruiting tool if the atmosphere is exciting at games ( a lot cheaper than some of the other expenses for a basketball program ).

I think the school is making a mistake by not making ( atmosphere ) more of a priority for a true home court advantage. We lost a couple of close ones...who knows. Senior Day for the girls had no pep band and very little energy by the cheerleaders ( shame on lack of students, as well ).

In students’ defense, it was a Sunday at 3 o’clock. We’re either still asleep or doing all of the homework we’ve been neglecting since Thursday (although I did go to the game still). I agree the atmosphere could be better, it always can, but I think it still all comes back to seeing something exciting. Beating IUPUI on a cold Tuesday night at 8 o’clock isn’t exciting, it’s just not for those who aren’t as into it as we are. The more national excitement we generate around post season appearances the more people will want to show up and the easier it will be to schedule exciting opponents in our arena. And with more people comes more money, the kind of money that funds all of that marketing and the atmosphere that doesn’t come free. I agree we need more emphasis on atmosphere and that there are small things that can be used to improve the experience

[wsutommygun]

I can forgive students for not going to every sporting event but, it makes a difference when student-athletes see their fellow students at games. Back in the day, I decided to go to a school I could support in sports. Figured I was paying for the ticket and I couldn't ignore that, either.

As long as the spirit unit is treated as a 2nd class citizen club sport, I'm thankful they ever show up. I think they miss out on the college experience of not doing something they like but, don't expect the school can dictate a game over some other appearance.

The whole thing makes a huge difference and helps the teams more than you'll ever know. The pep band does a great job in cheering along with the music but, wish they'd fill up their section with a few more members ( understand that is a budget thing, too ).

[mre]

Mar 6, 2019 11:27:32 GMT -5 wsutommygun said:

I can forgive students for not going to every sporting event but, it makes a difference when student-athletes see their fellow students at games. Back in the day, I decided to go to a school I could support in sports. Figured I was paying for the ticket and I couldn't ignore that, either.

As long as the spirit unit is treated as a 2nd class citizen club sport, I'm thankful they ever show up. I think they miss out on the college experience of not doing something they like but, don't expect the school can dictate a game over some other appearance.

The whole thing makes a huge difference and helps the teams more than you'll ever know. The pep band does a great job in cheering along with the music but, wish they'd fill up their section with a few more members ( understand that is a budget thing, too ).

Totally agree!