Bison89
Professor
Posts: 5370
Loc: Philadelphia
Reg: 11-14-07
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05-02-12 08:53 AM - Post#128845
I do not know if we ever discussed this article that ran in January in the Morning Call:
http://articles.mcall.com/2012-01-31/sports/mc- pat...
It talks about how difficult it is for Lehigh to get a decent crowd at Stabler. Given their NCAA Tournament appearance and big win over Duke, it will be interesting to see if their numbers will increase. Yes, they should, but you never know.
New season, new team, new dream . . . |
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Shot Clock
Masters Student
Posts: 883
Loc: Arlington VA
Reg: 01-27-06
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05-02-12 10:12 AM - Post#128848
In response to Bison89
I'm interested too.
Doesn't Lehigh televise a good number of their home games locally? That might hurt attendance too.
B.A. Bucknell University, 1993 |
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Bison137
Professor
Posts: 16147
Reg: 01-23-06
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05-02-12 10:20 AM - Post#128849
In response to Bison89
I imagine their attendance will increase in the upcoming season - but it will still be way too low. True, LU has the issue of the gym not being located on campus - but that is still a very poor excuse for the abysmal attendance figures they have run up over the years. Consider facts such as these:
- Lafayette - who has had much worse teams and plays in a glorified H.S. gym - has had MUCH better attendance figures than LU, despite being a much smaller school and playing in the same area.
- LU is located in the Lehigh Valley - which has a population of close to 1M people - and yet can't draw nearly as many locals as does Bucknell - who plays in an area with a population that is 1/10 that of Lehigh.
- If all student attendance was subtracted from Bucknell's attendance over the last decade, it would still be MUCH higher than LU's total atendance.
- Lehigh likely has at least 10x as many alumni as BU within driving distance of their games.
Yet despite the above factors and a decade of good teams and star players (Savovic, Rowland, Olivero, Knight, Hall, Carrington, McCollum, Knutson, etc), they still don't draw well. Many LU fans are not happy with this and have over the years suggested reasons/solutions for the problem. I think the biggest issue is simply that football and wrestling are the only sports most of their fanbase cares about.
When reading this article, don't forget that Housenick has become a shill who too often makes up stuff as he goes. For example, he claims in the article that "crowds for all three home games the last two weeks hovered around 2,000." The reality is that the average official (inflated) attendance for those three games was a bit over 1500 and that none was as high as 1800. And that includes the Bucknell game where the attendance would have been perhaps 1200 without the Bucknell crowd. One good measure of basketball interest was Lu's attendance for the Saturday nationally-televised semi-final vs a very good American team. Official attendance was around 1200 - with actual attendance lower.
Having said that, I expect LU will do somewhat better this year, with the carryover from the Duke win and it being CJ's last season. Still, it won't be anywhere near what it should be - which is frustrating to many of the true LU basketball fans.
BTW, here are LU's official attendace figures for the last decade. They are all inflated by a fair amount but are still interesting.
2012 - 1332 (11-3 PL record *)
2011 - 937 (6-8)
2010 - 1285 (10-4 *)
2009 - 1235 (5-9)
2008 - 1254 (7-7)
2007 - 1362 (7-7)
2006 - 1474 (11-3)
2005 - 1501 (8-6 #)
2004 - 1619 (10-4 *)
2003 - 1626 (8-6)
* = PL Champ
# = Record before having to forfeit virtually all games.
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Bison137
Professor
Posts: 16147
Reg: 01-23-06
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05-02-12 10:24 AM - Post#128850
In response to Shot Clock
I'm interested too.
Doesn't Lehigh televise a good number of their home games locally? That might hurt attendance too.
No, it's Lafayette who has the local TV coverage. Despite the TV and having much worse teams, LC still typically outdraws LU by a wide margin.
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Lee Hai Phan
Pre-Frosh
Posts: 4
Reg: 03-14-10
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05-02-12 12:05 PM - Post#128855
In response to Bison137
Just a correction: most of the Lehigh M&W home games are on TV2 Service Electric cable.
Not sure why attendance is so low, but there was professional basketball here a few years ago (Valley Dawgs coached by Darryl Dawkins of NBA) that drew even smaller crowds than Lehigh does.
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Bison137
Professor
Posts: 16147
Reg: 01-23-06
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05-02-12 12:16 PM - Post#128856
In response to Lee Hai Phan
Just a correction: most of the Lehigh M&W home games are on TV2 Service Electric cable.
Not sure why attendance is so low, but there was professional basketball here a few years ago (Valley Dawgs coached by Darryl Dawkins of NBA) that drew even smaller crowds than Lehigh does.
Thanks. Did not know that.
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Bison89
Professor
Posts: 5370
Loc: Philadelphia
Reg: 11-14-07
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05-02-12 02:20 PM - Post#128862
In response to Bison137
One other thing that the article suggested is that there might not be enough transportation from the main campus to the stadium. It would seem to be fairly simple to schedule more buses 30 minutes prior to game time. I wonder if this has been tried before. Do any LU readers know?
New season, new team, new dream . . . |
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Bison137
Professor
Posts: 16147
Reg: 01-23-06
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05-02-12 04:18 PM - Post#128873
In response to Bison89
I think this may be a chicken-egg situation. Why schedule more buses when almost no-one is using the ones that are already running? When I've been at LU games, the buses that arrive have plenty of empty seats.
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Bison54
PhD Student
Posts: 1800
Reg: 11-18-09
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05-02-12 05:02 PM - Post#128878
In response to Lee Hai Phan
Not sure why attendance is so low, but there was professional basketball here a few years ago (Valley Dawgs coached by Darryl Dawkins of NBA) that drew even smaller crowds than Lehigh does.
Anybody remember Harthorne Wingo and the Allentown Jets?
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Bison89
Professor
Posts: 5370
Loc: Philadelphia
Reg: 11-14-07
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05-02-12 09:11 PM - Post#128884
In response to Bison54
I had never heard of the Allentown Jets, but here is some info on them:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allentown_Jets
Looks like they closed shop after the 1980~81 season. Hmmm, I wonder if poor attendance was the problem.
New season, new team, new dream . . . |
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Bison54
PhD Student
Posts: 1800
Reg: 11-18-09
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Lehigh Attendance 05-03-12 08:03 AM - Post#128907
In response to Bison89
When I was at BU as a student, I made several trips to see the Allentown Jets play the Sunbury Mercuries. http://dailyitem.com/0100_news/x691315882/ Mercurie...
IIRC, the Jets were good and the Mercs were not. They played in a high school gym that was downright dangerous (stage and a balank wall close to the two goals)and maybe drew a decent crowd, which seemed bigger because of the small gym.
Edited by Bison54 on 05-03-12 08:06 AM. Reason for edit: No reason given.
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res
Masters Student
Posts: 839
Reg: 03-21-06
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05-03-12 08:38 AM - Post#128909
In response to Bison54
You're really old if you remember King Corcoran and the Pottstown Firebirds. Different sport, I know...
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RichH
Sophomore
Posts: 159
Age: 76
Reg: 01-30-12
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05-03-12 01:58 PM - Post#128920
In response to res
OK, an old fart,, remember King fondly. They were fun to watch and the beer was cheap
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Bucknell73
Senior
Posts: 304
Reg: 10-09-07
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Re: Lehigh Attendance 05-03-12 04:41 PM - Post#128930
In response to Bison54
Wow. Don't remember the Mercuries. Used to go to Trenton Colonials games back in the day.
Jack Ramsey played for the Mercuries? His son was in my Bucknell class.
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BisonWBBPxP
Pre-Frosh
Posts: 5
Age: 44
Reg: 12-03-10
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05-04-12 01:55 PM - Post#128939
In response to Bucknell73
And Jim Boeheim played in the league as well...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scranton_Miners
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bison75
Masters Student
Posts: 487
Reg: 01-26-06
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05-04-12 02:34 PM - Post#128941
In response to BisonWBBPxP
Wish I still had my old Wilkes-Barre Barons tee. Stan Pawlak was the man!
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bison63
Postdoc
Posts: 3857
Reg: 01-23-06
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Lehigh Attendance 05-04-12 03:30 PM - Post#128943
In response to bison75
Did go see the Mercs play in the early '60's. Can't remember the opponent, but their star player was Bill Spivey. Does anybody recall him?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Spivey
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