Attendance at Evansville

[ISU_TREE_FAN]

Brand spanking new venue, six seniors playing last home game on "senior night", over .500 MVC record accomplished with a win (first time in eons..........??????????????), 17 game winner going for 18th win and a top drawer player in Colt Ryan and they draw 6,909 fans. What the ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? and we thought we had it bad?

 

[GeoffreyK]

That brand spanking new venue could be part of their problem. First of all, it's not nearly as close to their campus as HC is to us. It's definitely not walking distance like Roberts Stadium (the old venue) could be in decent weather. Secondly, parking at the Ford Center is a mess, it's not just a problem for basketball games but any attraction that comes in there. It may look worse than ISU, but they at least have some reasonable excuses.

Does anyone know if UE gives free admission to students? If not, that could be another thing preventing students.

While at ISU, it's free, the walk to HC is no farther than the walk to class, so parking isn't an issue (well...), etc. I'd say we do have it bad, and we're worse than UE (not talking the game here).

Yeah, I'm rambling. If you can make sense of this post, more power to ya.

 

[The Chop]

According to my brother-in-law whose son was one of the 6 seniors, that's about twice the size of a normal crowd.We have absolutely no room to talk about support. Our home attendance ...actual in the house... were vastly inflated. I'm telling you right now , if we were to double our attendance for our senior night next year everyone would be saying what a great turnout we had.

 

[SycamoreFan317]

Is UE on Spring Break?

 

[eagletree]

I did look back at their attendance figures and they were pathetic. They were lucky to draw a 4,000 crowd. I have also looked at the other schools in the valley. Yes Creighton and WSU have much larger normal crowds than us but that has been the norm and they have little to no local competition. We actually outdraw many teams in the MAC, A-10, and some of the schools in the Big East.

 

[GeoffreyK]

Is UE on Spring Break?

According to their website, yes, technically. They are on spring break this coming week. So Friday night was "break" for them.

http://evansville.edu/ Homepage, upcoming events near the bottom.

 

[BankShot]

It'll be interesting to see how the GLV Tournament draws this weekend in E-ville @ Ford Center, w/ USI the host school. Didn't E-ville also get the 2014 Div II Elite 8 Tournament, which is essentially the same Small College Finals as yesteryear?

 

[swsycamore]

You have to remember that evansville only has around 2,000 students. Thw town usually suppots them pretty well. They got off to a bad start and everyone must have said the hell with it.

 

[Sycamore Proud]

From the 2010 census:

Evansville population 117,429 (with a metropolitan population of 358,376)

Terre Haute population 60,785 (I didn't dig deep enough to find metropolitan population, if it's available)

You can add in WTH, NTH and all other bedroom communities and there is no way it approaches 350,000, lol

Consider the differences between the cities and The Haute does much better.

 

[bent20]

Evansville is also a private university with a quarter of the enrollment we have (3,000 students to our 12,000). Not that that seems to matter since we can't get many of our students to the games consistently either. Anyway, looking at city populations doesn't necessarily tell you much because we're a much bigger school and should expect to draw more as a result.

 

[bent20]

And with that said, I'm hesitant to talk much about our attendance figures right now. With the way our men's basketball team and our football team just shit away the ends of their seasons, I don't want to hear anyone from the university bitching about attendance. If you want to point to the winning seasons, that's great. We have another thread pointing out that attendance has steadily been climbing for both sports, but don't expect it to go through the roof until our teams can find a way to finish.

 

[Sycamore Proud]

I'm referring to the cities involved--not the student body attendance. In just the numbers, I feel TH does better for the full season in terms of % of population in attendance.

 

[Sycamore Proud]

And with that said, I'm hesitant to talk much about our attendance figures right now. With the way our men's basketball team and our football team just shit away the ends of their seasons, I don't want to hear anyone from the university bitching about attendance. If you want to point to the winning seasons, that's great. We have another thread pointing out that attendance has steadily been climbing for both sports, but don't expect it to go through the roof until our teams can find a way to finish.

yep

 

[Kosor77]

For the size that the town Evansville is I'm also surprised they do not have a bigger crowd as well. Terre Haute metropolitan area is close to 171,000 people compared to 358,000 people which is Evansville's metropolitan population. Yes UE is a lot smaller then ISU but you would think people in that city love basketball so why not go and cheer the only Div. 1 team they have. USI is growing but is still Div. 2. All in all we just need to learn how to finish the season better from now on, hopefully we go to Stl. and have a great tournament run again like 2 years ago. I've always noticed that Hautians do jump on the ISU bandwagon fast when they are winning but jump off just as quickly as soon as they lose.

 

[BankShot]

That's human nature, not just TH. Few people prefer to stay in a wagon that's on fire and approaching a cliff w/o brakes...

As far as UE attendance @ Ford Center, there are multiple reasons why the low #'s, but just like ISU, the bottom line is PRODUCT. Win, and they will come.

I grewup in the mid-60's E-ville era, when ISUE was just a fledgling "satellite" of ISU. Many of the professors used to drive down from TH to teach classes. That was almost 50 yrs. ago. While only a Div II school, they've also built their own "hedge" over the years. Those who don't think it impacts UE hoop attendance are simply avoiding reality. Div II ball in the GLVC is GOOD basketball, AND ON ANY GIVEN NIGHT, a number of those squads could beat many Div I teams in America. USI fans feel "slighted" by the coverage they get compared to UE (very similar to ISU's view of the Indy Star). They're probably right. But UE is the "old fart" lingering in the Ohio River wind, with a scent of "tradition" that you can't buy @ Wal-Mart. That's the difference, and for the OFC diehards, it's something they dream of returning to - very similar to ISU & 1979.

 

[Daveinth]

For the size that the town Evansville is I'm also surprised they do not have a bigger crowd as well. Terre Haute metropolitan area is close to 171,000 people compared to 358,000 people which is Evansville's metropolitan population. Yes UE is a lot smaller then ISU but you would think people in that city love basketball so why not go and cheer the only Div. 1 team they have. USI is growing but is still Div. 2. All in all we just need to learn how to finish the season better from now on, hopefully we go to Stl. and have a great tournament run again like 2 years ago. I've always noticed that Hautians do jump on the ISU bandwagon fast when they are winning but jump off just as quickly as soon as they lose.

As a Hautian ( as you put it ) This is very offensive. I have been a season ticket holder for 24 years now . I support this team every year. I am not the only one on this board hell there are alot of us Hautians who come to the games win or lose so I call that supporting the team alot more so than you want to give us Hautians credit for .

 

[bent20]

I've always noticed that Hautians do jump on the ISU bandwagon fast when they are winning but jump off just as quickly as soon as they lose.

We had fans attending ISU football games when they had won just one game in five years. I don't think residents can be blamed if some lose interest, especially when our teams keep struggling to finish.