The NCAA News - News and Features

June 23, 1997

Attendance declines slightly in men's college basketball divisions

BY GARY K. JOHNSON
NCAA STATISTICS COORDINATOR

Across the board, in all three divisions, men's attendance in 1996-97 dropped from the previous year.

Even with the emergence of new college stars, some great conference races, exciting conference tournaments and an NCAA tournament that produced a record-tying seven overtime games, Division I men's basketball had 351,796 fewer fans than the year before. At the same 305 Division I schools counted last year, attendance dropped an average of 103 fans per game in 1996-97.

Nationally, in games involving a Division I team, a total of 23,190,856 people pushed the turnstiles -- the ninth consecutive year that attendance topped the 23 million mark.

Does the decline give credence to those college basketball experts who predicted that attendance at men's games would drop after a record number of underclassmen entered the professional draft early last summer? Although it's impossible to draw a cause-and-effect relationship between the loss of top players and the diminished attendance, there is no denying that Division I basketball lost more top players than ever before in advance of the 1996-97 season. Of the 37 players who entered their names into the 1996 NBA draft, 22 were Division I players and four were high-school students. Sixteen were not drafted by the NBA (six other players declared early and then later withdrew their names before the draft).

Although this year's drop in attendance seems large, it isn't the largest fall in the 1990s. That came in 1993. In 1992, Division I fans set a record as 23,893,993 of them watched games in person. The following year, attendance dropped more than 570,000.

In all three NCAA divisions combined, 27,738,284 fans saw NCAA men's college basketball games in 1996-97. That figure is 487,068 fewer spectators from the year before and a drop of 55 per game. The all-divisions-combined record also was set in 1992 with 29,378,161 spectators. Until this year, national attendance had not dipped below 28 million since 1988.

In the first year of record-keeping for Division I men's basketball attendance in 1976, the Atlantic Coast Conference became the first league to claim the attendance title. In the 21 years since then, however, the Big Ten Conference has won every year.

The 11 teams of the Big Ten brought in 2,004,893 spectators for a 12,376-per-game average. Four years ago, the Big Ten set the national conference record of 2,163,693.

Top four unchanged

The top four conferences repeated their finishes of a year ago, as the ACC finished second, the Southeastern Conference third and the Big East fourth. The ACC averaged 11,165 fans per game, the SEC had 10,586 and the Big East averaged 9,803.

The 13 teams of the Big East also recorded the most total fans among conferences as 2,029,127 spectators watched the action -- the most ever in the league.

Rounding out the top five was a new conference: the Big Twelve, which averaged 9,661 spectators a game.

Among individual teams, for the second straight year Kentucky played in the Final Four championship game and led the nation in home attendance. The Wildcats totaled 309,457 fans and averaged 23,804 spectators over 13 games in Rupp Arena.

Although Syracuse's total of 346,748 people at the Carrier Dome was more than Kentucky, the Orangemen finished second in home attendance at 21,672 per game for their 16 contests. Before 1996, Syracuse held the top spot in attendance for 11 consecutive seasons, from 1985 to 1995.

North Carolina was the only other school to average more than 20,000, as 20,577 fans a game watched the action in the Smith Center. National-champion Arizona moved up three spots to 12th with a 14,279 average at McKale Center.

In addition to Kentucky and Syracuse, two other teams saw more than 300,000 people pass through the turnstiles: Arkansas' 18 home games attracted 309,332 fans, while New Mexico's 18 games at The Pit brought in 309,122.

The Division I runner-up Kentucky Wildcats were seen by the most people this season as 822,863 spectators watched Rick Pitino's squad at home in Rupp Arena in Lexington, on the road and at neutral sites. Dean Smith's North Carolina team was a distant second at 623,317. Kentucky came up just short of the all-time record of 855,053 by Jim Boeheim's 1989 Syracuse squad.

In this year of dropping attendance, 34 Division I teams had at least 1,000 fewer fans per game than the previous season.

Divisions II and III

South Dakota State claimed its second straight title as the Division II attendance leader with 4,423 spectators a game. Kentucky Wesleyan finished second by attracting 3,700 fans per game.

Hope and Calvin continue to battle it out for the Division III attendance championship, with Calvin reclaiming the title this season. Calvin averaged 2,821 spectators a game to Hope's 2,323.

Illinois Wesleyan placed a close third at 2,257 fans per game.

Hope earned attendance titles in 1984, 1991 and 1996, while Calvin led the division in nine of the last 11 seasons.

The top conference in Division II for the 17th consecutive year was the North Central Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, with 319,703 spectators and a 2,160 average.

The Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association topped all Division III conferences with a 1,085 average. The MIAA was the only Division III conference to average more than 1,000 fans a game as it claimed its sixth consecutive attendance title.

Although the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin finished second in Division III average attendance at 887, it totaled more fans than the MIAA with 86,898. But the total-attendance title went to the Wisconsin State University Conference with 93,229.