good dolphin wrote:
long time guy wrote:
If it is about a "symbiotic" relationship between fans and school then why don't UIC Depaul and Chicago State draw? Why did Oklahoma have its best single game attendance number in 9 years this Dec.? Why did UCLA's attendance suffer Pre Alford?
As much as we like to romanticize about the purity of college sports crappy teams don't draw. No one wants to see a bad product. You remove the McDonald All Americans from college teams and push them towards the G league and the interest in college basketball suffers tremendously. No one wants to see guys like Eli Cain play basketball. That is what you'd be left with
Good teams without future pros draw. Alternatively bad teams with good players do not, as evidenced by the Kennedy era at DePaul
You are more sophisticated than to think Oklahoma is the same school as UIC, DePaul and Chicago State. There are so many factors beyond the presence of Trae Young that it is not worthy of discussion.
UCLA has always sent players to the pros so comparing pre and post Alford attendance only strengthens my position that it isn't individual players that are driving interest.
Dilute the overall talent in the NCAA but allow Kentucky to continue to be a winning franchise within that diluted context and UK fans will continue to show
When the product was down they didn't come out to UCLA to watch basketball. There was a difference of about 2-3,000 in the final year pre Alford.
If Kentucky is the tallest midget I still believe there'd be a drop in attendance. The ratings for college basketball would surely take a hit as well. We won't know for sure unless these changes take place but I'm interested to find out. I'm sure that there has been a dip in U of I's attendance also.
Depaul is a tad different than the other local schools too. There was a time when Depaul was big box office in this city. The actually have a rich tradition but they have put out a garbage product for 20 years. They had 1-2 years under Leitao but aside from that they have been garbage. There are many in this city that long for the Halycon days of Aguirre. People aren't excited because the team stinks.
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The Hawk wrote:
This is going to reach a head pretty soon.