Attendance

[XU-PA]

First, kudos! Nice crowd saturday afternoon at the Cintas Center for the rhody game. Nice giveaway always helps. 2835 was the 2nd highest home att. of the year behind the 3461 for the home opener with UL. Overall averaging 2061 per game, last year's total was just over 2400 per game, and of course included the 2 home NCAA games which will skew the numbers upward this year too.
Across town, a pretty crappy game by UC got 3422 in the seats, but that was UConn. I imagine just as many were there to see the Huskies, if not more. Bearcats were averaging just over 1000 before that game.

We stand atop the A-10 in Home attendance.
Charlotte and Temple close with over 1700 each, Dayton and St Joe's are over the 1000 mark, but after that it's woeful. Especially surprising is the Dukes. 960 per game, they are 18-3 and 5-1 in the conference! Surprise at the bottom would be Rhody, as woeful as they are they are close to a grand a game.
Just looking around the region, A-10 and other conferences to see how we compare.
My initial reaction is the jump on my soapbox and wonder why the hell the support is not there for a top ten team, a program with a proven track record of NCAA appearances. One argument ahs always been that XU needs to producce a winner year after year, well.I'd say they have!
The XU marketing folks have poured lots of effort and $$ into women's sports, especially hoops, so I wonder what it will take? What will it take for sport fans to wake up, and for the local press to start paying attention. Which should be first?

Any thoughts? Especially for those out of town, how are women's sports treated in your area by the media and does that transfer to attendance?

[XU-PA]

History.
09-10 was 2415 (2219 if you recalculate without the NCAA games)
08-09 was 1487
07-08 was 1865
06-07 was 1512
05-06 was 1500
04-05 was 1466
03-04 was 1447
02-03 was 1661- McGuff's First season

[xuwin]

First, kudos! Nice crowd saturday afternoon at the Cintas Center for the rhody game. Nice giveaway always helps. 2835 was the 2nd highest home att. of the year behind the 3461 for the home opener with UL. Overall averaging 2061 per game, last year's total was just over 2400 per game, and of course included the 2 home NCAA games which will skew the numbers upward this year too.
Across town, a pretty crappy game by UC got 3422 in the seats, but that was UConn. I imagine just as many were there to see the Huskies, if not more. Bearcats were averaging just over 1000 before that game.

We stand atop the A-10 in Home attendance.
Charlotte and Temple close with over 1700 each, Dayton and St Joe's are over the 1000 mark, but after that it's woeful. Especially surprising is the Dukes. 960 per game, they are 18-3 and 5-1 in the conference! Surprise at the bottom would be Rhody, as woeful as they are they are close to a grand a game.
Just looking around the region, A-10 and other conferences to see how we compare.
My initial reaction is the jump on my soapbox and wonder why the hell the support is not there for a top ten team, a program with a proven track record of NCAA appearances. One argument ahs always been that XU needs to producce a winner year after year, well.I'd say they have!
The XU marketing folks have poured lots of effort and $$ into women's sports, especially hoops, so I wonder what it will take? What will it take for sport fans to wake up, and for the local press to start paying attention. Which should be first?

Any thoughts? Especially for those out of town, how are women's sports treated in your area by the media and does that transfer to attendance?

It would help a lot if the A-10 would make some effort not to schedule the men's games and womens game on the same nights. Since very few of the women's games are televised that should not be a factor. I would have gone to several more of the womens games this year if they were not playing on the same night as the men. Given a choice I will watch the men's games on TV rather than go to the women's games.

[cinskyline]

Looking at those teams that are at or near the top in attendance, they are the only game around in their cities/towns. After all, what else is there to do in Storrs, Knoxville, Lafayette, Murfreesboro, etc.. ? It's definitely disappointing that more people are not attending the games though. It seems like there was a buzz in the air at the end of last season, but it seemed to have been lost by the time this year came around. Even in the Cintas Center it just seems to me like there is very little excitement for a #7 team, and I can't figure out why. The fans have to show up first and the media will follow.

Also, UC is actually averaging far less than 1000 per game. They got a nice bump from the Crosstown Shootout. 300-400 is more along the lines of what they are averaging. I sooo wish that our women played in the Big East. The bottom half of the A-10 just absolutely sucks.

We as message board fans should take it upon ourselves to sort of promote the team. One thing that I would suggest is making this women's board much more active with discussion. There are times when there are no new posts for almost a week. Whenever we see something concerning our team, we should post a new topic here.

For example, I haven't seen any post period concerning Ta'Shia setting the all-time A-10 record for rebounding. That is an incredible accomplishment when you consider all the great players this league has had. Just amazing.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on the situation.

[XU-PA]

Running off your post on another thread Cinskyline, what about the media's role in this?
Doesn't just the fact that they exist, are top ten, and are in season merit the Musketeers a regular feature article? there are tons, tons of stories to tell about this group, of their activities both on and off the court.
The rebounding record is a good example, how about the balloting going on right now for top student athlete that Amber is in? Either of those things get any real coverage?

Seems like the local paper will begrudgingly put an AP wrap, or copy over the XU press release with the box score, and that's about it till tourney time.

[XU-PA]

Big East teams.
UConn, no surprise, almost 10 grand.
might surprise you though they are not the conference leader. Louisville puts over 11,000 in the seats per game! Notre Dame 3rd with 8500.
Teams in our range, DePaul, Pitt, Rutgers and West VA all in the 2000's per game.
Georgetown, seton hall, providence and villanova under 1000 per.

In the ACC
Duke leads the way with over 5000, Maryland over 4 grand per. Virginia has 3200.
Florida State, Georgia Tech, North Carolina and Virginia Tech all in the 2000's.
Clemson, Miami and Wake are the only teams under 1000.

In the Big Ten
Purdue is on top with just over 7000, then comes Mich State 6800, Iowa 6200. Wisconsin almost 5 grand and they're one of the worst teams in the conf, Ohio state and Penn State are in the mid 3's. Only Northwestern is under a grand at 800.

Looking across those numbers, just on the surface you can't really point to one thing. Some bad teams get good numbers, some good teams get so so numbers. Some big numbers come from big cities, some from small areas. And the towns with lots of other stuff going on, pro teams, other colleges etc, like Cincy, same story, some big numnbers some small.

one thing I know, the coverage level of womens sports in Connecticut, and in Tennesee is very very high. Those media outlets don't let gender get in the way of a good story.

[XU-PA]

If you look at the conferences more in the realm of the A-10, closer in the rpi stack for conference.
we are one ahead of Missouri Valley
Indiana State and Missouri State are well over 3000 per.
Wichita State at 2500 Drake at about 2000
Creighton and Ill State are over 1000
Bradley, Evansville, Southern Ill and UNI are all under 1000

and the Pac Team, which is one notch ahead of A-10 in rpi rankings
Stanford, no surprise, leads with almost 5000 a game
AZ State and Oregon both over 3000
Wash at 2100
Arizona, Call, Oregon State, UCLA are all in the 1000's
USC and Wash State the only teams under 1000.

[XU-PA]

OK, bear with me, tossing in the last two.

The Big 12
Interestingly Iowa State leads the pack, just over 9000! And there a middle of the pack team.
Baylor next almost 7500
then Texas Tech with 6500! another middle of the pack team
Texas, Texas A&M, Kansas and OK are all in the 4000's
Nebraska almost 4000
Kansas and OK State in the 2's
and their bottom is Colorado with 1600, Missouri with 1400.
That conference and those teams, doing something right

The SEC
No Surprise that Tenn is Number one, in fact tops in the nation with almost 13000 a game
Kentucky is almost 6200
Georgia, Vandy and South Carolina all in the mid 3's
Auburn almost 3000
Alabama 1800, Florida 1500
Miss State and Ole Miss below 1000 each.

[X-band '01]

The AP will do stories for Xavier as long as they're Top 10.

As for other A-10 schools, I just get the feeling that women's basketball isn't a priority in some instances - Duquesne also has the problem of competing with the Penguins, Pitt, and Robert Morris for men's BB coverage, much less women's BB. And also their football team.

[WCWIII]

Living in Chicago, I am proud that I've made a couple trips to see the Louisville and Dayton games so far. Plan to see the at Dayton and Dusquense games still to come. Crowds have been very good when I've been there. The lower bowl feels fairly full except the end zones. More importantly, I'm impressed with the crowd that does get into it. You feel energy from the crowd at key moments ... that's pretty much what puts the crowd and attendance over the top rather than the raw numbers. I also agree that the athletics department with its handling of online information, media guide, giveaways and promotions certainly make me feel Women's Basketball is part of an overall big time program. Best would be if a few others decide to come out to one of the remaining games and see your top 10 Lady Muskies in action.

[cinskyline]

Running off your post on another thread Cinskyline, what about the media's role in this?
Doesn't just the fact that they exist, are top ten, and are in season merit the Musketeers a regular feature article? there are tons, tons of stories to tell about this group, of their activities both on and off the court.
The rebounding record is a good example, how about the balloting going on right now for top student athlete that Amber is in? Either of those things get any real coverage?

Seems like the local paper will begrudgingly put an AP wrap, or copy over the XU press release with the box score, and that's about it till tourney time.

The fact that they are #7 says that they should be getting a lot more coverage than they are now. However, the media will go to what is most popular or whatever event draws the most people. If the ladies are to ever get good coverage, attendance is going to have to improve dramatically, especially for weekday games. 2000 people just won't cut it, though I think the Enquirer could make a better effort. And I agree that when the ladies actually do get a mention, it is usually back-handed, almost like they're forced to.

[XU-PA]

Cinskyline,
I've always thought that the media has an obligation to go beyond that popularity contest method of news coverage. I think they need to look at what could be interesting and try to sell it to their audience. It takes work, sadly these days it's become more formulaic and sports just gets shoved off to the side with very little if any innovation in coverage there.
I have seen in other markets where womens sport does get substantial coverage that it is in depth, and you do get lengthy feature coverage rather than just the usual day after game write up.
I worked in news for a decade and a half in Cinti. Once the consultants got ahold of us the whole face of coverage changed. News rooms need to justify coverage and story count based on what their target audience would be interested in watching.
The target for all media is not the 30's 40's and 50's men who are most interested in daily male sports coverage. The target is women, and women are more interested in participating than sitting back and watching, so it's harder to get them pulled in as readers/viewers. The advanced story telling our our era, feature stories etc is an attempt to get those customers. I can't for the life of me figure out why news outlets won't explore womens sports, seems like a no brainer!

[coasterville95]

Big East teams.
UConn, no surprise, almost 10 grand.
might surprise you though they are not the conference leader. Louisville puts over 11,000 in the seats per game! Notre Dame 3rd with 8500.
Teams in our range, DePaul, Pitt, Rutgers and West VA all in the 2000's per game.
Georgetown, seton hall, providence and villanova under 1000 per.

Interesting - I just looked at the ESPN Women's Bracketology (WAY too early, I know) - and they have us playing Robert Morris in first round - but way more interesting - they are sending Louisville to Cintas Center.

That's an easy travel - can you imagine playing our *home game* if Louisville fans buy out the 'Tas. Okay, I know not all 11K are going to travel, but let's say 6K do. That could be B-A-D BAD.

The other entry in our pod would be Georgia in that fictional scenario.

[X-band '01]

Let's not forget that Xavier already played Louisville in the NCAAs back in 2001 - the attendance for that game was about 6,400. It was about 2,000 more than what Xavier drew last season.

I'm also going to assume that the women's selection committee has the same rules that the men do as far as rematches - they'll try to avoid rematches in the 2nd round but won't forbid it. If Xavier plays the Cards in Round 2, so be it.

Plus, with all the top teams getting shellacked on the road, does it make you feel better or worse that Xavier had a shot of getting a scalp at Duke but couldn't cash it in?