Here's a story I would like to see written

[Orangeyes]

We all know what a great draw Syracuse is on the road. I'd like to see, Goodman, Winn, Davis or Katz do an article on:

1. What affect does Syracuse, Kentucky, Duke, North Carolina, Kansas and say Ohio State have on the attendance at away venues? (The % increase from all other home games.)

2. Do the home teams have to move the game to larger arenas?

3. What is the total home and away attendance of each of the above teams in question #1?

4. What percentage of each away arena is filled with the above teams fans.

Perhaps Mike Waters might want to tackle this.

Where do you think SU would rank with the others in all of the categories?

 

[DomeStranger]

I would like to see that question answered as well.

My guess would be #3, behind NC and Duke. Although Kentucky, Kansas or Mich St wouldn't surprise me squeezing in there.

 

[HoustonCuse]

I pulled the numbers for the latest year available, 2009-2010:

The NCAA keeps track of home attendance and total attendance at all sites for each team. I took the road/home/neutral attendance, subtracted the home attendance and then figured out how many games each team had away from home to come up with this. Ostensibly this would show the drawing power of each team away from home. Two problems with this are:
1. Two of the teams went to the final four, which means they played in front of mammoth crowds which are largely team independent (most final fours are in huge arenas and will have big attendance no matter who is playing)
2. These numbers are naturally constrained by the size of your opponents arenas.

The true test is to look at just home games and compare the Syracuse visit attendance to the average for the home team. Someone did that in another post, but that sort of data is a hassle to collect. So here is my contribution.

2009-2010 Home-Road-Neutral Attendance


Ranking in per game road-neutral attendance is:
1. Duke (FF Team) 22,649
2. Michigan State (FF Team) 16,944
3. Syracuse 14,530
4. Kentucky 14,508
5. UNC 14482
6. UL 14372
7. Tennessee 13435

(I had a nice table but it converted to jibberish in the actual post, sorry)

If you remove the Final Four games, which averaged over 70k each, Duke still remains at the top with a per game average attendance of 18,034, Michigan State falls to 7th with 14,083. I would say we can conclude that Syracuse is the second biggest draw in all of college basketball. Duke is clearly #1 (by a lot actually).

 

[HtownOrange]

I pulled the numbers for the latest year available, 2009-2010:

The NCAA keeps track of home attendance and total attendance at all sites for each team. I took the road/home/neutral attendance, subtracted the home attendance and then figured out how many games each team had away from home to come up with this. Ostensibly this would show the drawing power of each team away from home. Two problems with this are:
1. Two of the teams went to the final four, which means they played in front of mammoth crowds which are largely team independent (most final fours are in huge arenas and will have big attendance no matter who is playing)
2. These numbers are naturally constrained by the size of your opponents arenas.

The true test is to look at just home games and compare the Syracuse visit attendance to the average for the home team. Someone did that in another post, but that sort of data is a hassle to collect. So here is my contribution.

2009-2010 Home-Road-Neutral Attendance


Ranking in per game road-neutral attendance is:
1. Duke (FF Team) 22,649
2. Michigan State (FF Team) 16,944
3. Syracuse 14,530
4. Kentucky 14,508
5. UNC 14482
6. UL 14372
7. Tennessee 13435

(I had a nice table but it converted to jibberish in the actual post, sorry)

If you remove the Final Four games, which averaged over 70k each, Duke still remains at the top with a per game average attendance of 18,034, Michigan State falls to 7th with 14,083. I would say we can conclude that Syracuse is the second biggest draw in all of college basketball. Duke is clearly #1 (by a little more than 1k fans per game over the Orange).

Thanks, gents, for the question and the response. Now no discussion would be complete without an unreasonable rabbit trail, so here it is:

How would this be affected by changing the teams played? Specifically, Syracuse plays in opposition venues largely on the east coast where we have graduates, families and retirees who can get to the games easily. How would a Syracuse visit to Boise State, Texas Tech, St. Mary's, Washington State, etc. affect their attendance? I realize this can only be speculation, so chime in with your two cents.

I suspect we gain a windfall as we primarily play at eastern based schools where our fans can more easily attend an away game. I would suspect that Duke would garner enough interest in an out of the way place like Nebraska or Colorado or a west coast team. UNC, Michigan State, Kentucky, and a few others may do the same.

 

[HoustonCuse]

I just looked again and realized I ommitted Kansas. I went out to the top 7 in total attendance. They were 8th. Dang nabbit. It turns out they are ahead of us. The list (excluding FF games) looks like this:

1. Duke (sans FF) 18,034
2. Kansas 14,735
3. Syracuse 14,530
4. Kentucky 14,508
5. UNC 14482
6. UL 14372
7. Michigan State (sans FF) 14,083
8. Tennessee 13,435

It is possible there could be other teams who are great draws on the road and I missed them because they have small home arenas, but I think we probably have the major players here. It's Duke, then everybody else. #2 and #6 are only separated by 363 per game!

 

[stuckinbig11]

How can Duke be so high? Their home games are played in a glorified high school gym.

 

[HoustonCuse]

How can Duke be so high? Their home games are played in a glorified high school gym.

This is only their road/neutral draw. They ended up high in overall attendance mainly because they played in front of 142,000 fans in their last two games.

 

[cto]

Here's another problem. We sometimes get screwed by television scheduling

We are playing at UConn on 2/25. That game would sell out in Hartford (20k capacity).

But, no. ESPN wants that game as "Game Day." So they schedule it at frigging Gampel (8k or something in the middle of nowhere) in order to have a cozy place with students.

This, they hope, they will create a frenzied student environment. It will also serve to keep away all the SU fans who could have gotten tix for Hartford, but who cannot get them for Gampel (and/or who cannot/will not drive there and back for a 9 pm game).

Lots of odd things figure into attendance numbers.

 

[OrangeHeel]

Similar problem: Duke goes to Carolina 22K +/-; Carolina goes to Duke 8K +/-. Like CTO alluded to, matters where those away games are. Since SU plays in largest regularly used arena, we'll always be on short end on the road. I think a better point of comparison would be to look at % of capacity increase in home team's attendance when 'Cuse, Carolina, etc. visit.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk