(03-01-2013 04:18 PM)Title Wrote:  As I said not three posts above. Butler sells out all weekend dates now. (10k). Most recent dates, such as Xavier coming up, sold old months ago. Butler will average 8000 this year. Butler's capacity will be just over 8000.

I think Butler's attendance issues are easily explainable:

1. The Colts
2. The Pacers

Those two things "professionalize" the town, which means that Butler is competing with other acts for its fans. Obviously Creighton, VCU, and Wichita State aren't competing under the same terms (for all extents and purposes, Creighton IS the NBA team in town).

And yes, Xavier has some of the same issues with the Bengals. But I still think Butler's attendance will be good enough for the new league, even if the fans seem to be more fickle than we would like. The competition in town just means that midweek games against Longwood won't sellout as easily as a Xavier or Georgetown matchup. They'll still average a lot of fans during conference season (my cut-off is 6000ish).

(03-01-2013 10:30 PM)College Basketball Fan Wrote:  

(03-01-2013 04:18 PM)Title Wrote:  As I said not three posts above. Butler sells out all weekend dates now. (10k). Most recent dates, such as Xavier coming up, sold old months ago. Butler will average 8000 this year. Butler's capacity will be just over 8000.

I think Butler's attendance issues are easily explainable:

1. The Colts
2. The Pacers

Those two things "professionalize" the town, which means that Butler is competing with other acts for its fans. Obviously Creighton, VCU, and Wichita State aren't competing under the same terms (for all extents and purposes, Creighton IS the NBA team in town).

And yes, Xavier has some of the same issues with the Bengals. But I still think Butler's attendance will be good enough for the new league, even if the fans seem to be more fickle than we would like. The competition in town just means that midweek games against Longwood won't sellout as easily as a Xavier or Georgetown matchup. They'll still average a lot of fans during conference season (my cut-off is 6000ish).

You just gave Saint Louis' problems as well.

1. The Cardinals
2. The Rams
3. The Blues
4. The Cardinals offseason
5. The Cardinals spring training
6. A Cardinal goes out to dinner.

(02-26-2013 04:20 PM)Jet915 Wrote:  

(02-26-2013 03:50 PM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(02-26-2013 01:06 PM)Jet915 Wrote:  We all know Butler is in and rightfully so, just curious why they get such low attendance given their success in recent years.

They're a small school. An early season home schedule drove down the attendance totals:

Elon
Hanover
Ball State
IUPUI
Evansville
Penn
New Orleans

They averaged close to full capacity for their conference games.

BTW, Hinkle Field House on campus is where parts of Hoosiers were filmed because that's where the events took place in the real story upon which the movie was based.

Alot of the schools in contention are small schools as well. Indianapolis is a relatively large city so not sure why that would matter. Creighton got 16-17K during their nonconference against teams like Longwood and Presbyterian and have had alot less success than Butler recently. Watching a game at Hinkle which has alot of history should make the attendance better IMO as well.

Well Hinkle only seats 10K so hard to average more the 9 or so because your top games are capped at 10K. I don't ever see the dogs leaving Hinkle to play at Conseco though with the Big East teams they easily could seat more at Conseco.

(03-01-2013 04:07 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  

(02-26-2013 01:06 PM)Jet915 Wrote:  We all know Butler is in and rightfully so, just curious why they get such low attendance given their success in recent years.

Butler probably has the worst home schedule of anyone in the bunch. Other than home dates with Louisville and Xavier, their next best home opponent last year was either Milwaukee or Valpo. Hard to sell season tickets with that type of schedule. One of the downsides of being in a big city with an NBA team is that no one will bother coming unless you're playing big names.

My brother is a Butler booster. They more than doubled their donation levels for last year at all levels. And yet they still had way more demand than the previous year. They're midway through fundraising for a $20 million overhaul of their stadium that will expand the high roller suites and make the whole arena operate more efficiently (not that it's bad now, but this can only help attendance).

Butler will do well in attendance once they're playing teams that people actually want to see.

People forget last year was not a good year for Butler as they didn't win the Horizon league. Plus they had an okay OOC plus the games they did sell out were maxed at 10K.

As Title says we will average 8000-9000K which means we sell out most games and draw 6-7 for tune up games. Playing at Hinkle has it downsides which is why they moved the Indiana game to Conseco. It will be interesting what they do in the Big East. The will pull more fans and could move to Conseco or they could stay at Hinkle. Wonder what others would prefer?

I think with the renovation that Hinkle is scheduled for they are going to lose capacity. I could be wrong, but they also have to deal with a large Indiana-Purdue fan base in Indianapolis. Both of those schools are within 75 minutes of Butler's campus. I don't think you have to worry about their attendance. It went up when they joined the A10 and it will only go higher in the new league.

As far Xavier goes, I don't think attendance is an issue when we have averaged over 10,000 for the last 10 years and it's not like we are selling seats for $10 a tickets. I believe next year my personal seat license will be close to $2k/seat and season tickets could exceed $1k/seat. Also, we out draw that school 3 miles away.

(03-02-2013 02:29 AM)Sactowndog Wrote:  

(03-01-2013 04:07 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  

(02-26-2013 01:06 PM)Jet915 Wrote:  We all know Butler is in and rightfully so, just curious why they get such low attendance given their success in recent years.

Butler probably has the worst home schedule of anyone in the bunch. Other than home dates with Louisville and Xavier, their next best home opponent last year was either Milwaukee or Valpo. Hard to sell season tickets with that type of schedule. One of the downsides of being in a big city with an NBA team is that no one will bother coming unless you're playing big names.

My brother is a Butler booster. They more than doubled their donation levels for last year at all levels. And yet they still had way more demand than the previous year. They're midway through fundraising for a $20 million overhaul of their stadium that will expand the high roller suites and make the whole arena operate more efficiently (not that it's bad now, but this can only help attendance).

Butler will do well in attendance once they're playing teams that people actually want to see.

People forget last year was not a good year for Butler as they didn't win the Horizon league. Plus they had an okay OOC plus the games they did sell out were maxed at 10K.

As Title says we will average 8000-9000K which means we sell out most games and draw 6-7 for tune up games. Playing at Hinkle has it downsides which is why they moved the Indiana game to Conseco. It will be interesting what they do in the Big East. The will pull more fans and could move to Conseco or they could stay at Hinkle. Wonder what others would prefer?

I really hope the view from the upper deck on the baselines is fixed. I sat their once and felt like I missed half the game.

As an outsider, I'd much rather play at Hinkle. I get the impression that Hinkle is like Fenway or the old Boston Garden, with a ton of history with Hoosiers and an old skool feel. Playing at Conseco would be like the Red Sox playing at Gillette.

(03-02-2013 07:10 AM)billyjack Wrote:  As an outsider, I'd much rather play at Hinkle. I get the impression that Hinkle is like Fenway or the old Boston Garden, with a ton of history with Hoosiers and an old skool feel. Playing at Conseco would be like the Red Sox playing at Gillette.

I feel like I'm beating my head against a wall.

Butler ROUTINELY sells out. (Like every game that occurs on a Friday-Sunday night)

They will AVERAGE what will be the gym's capacity.

Now, setting aside those facts to continue with this make believe time. If you want a "reason" Butler hasn't average 10k in the former configuration of Hinkle Fieldhouse, well, the school typically has 3800-3900 students AND you can be at Purdue or Indiana in 40 minutes north and south.

Butler is surrounded by two Big Ten schools (with the 40k students per year alumni base AND occupy a space with professional football and basketball (not to mention the city isn't exactly enormous)

Title--
I'm not sure if you meant to respond to me?
Someone asked if an outsider had an opinion about playing at Hinkle, implying that an outsider could have a problem with sightlines or something. My response was that it's no problem.

As far as Butler using Conseco and selling out and getting great attendance, I have no disagreement with you.

You were just the post immediately before and I hit reply.

(03-02-2013 08:16 AM)Title Wrote:  You were just the post immediately before and I hit reply.

Ok, no problem.

But you do make a good point, that I hadn't thought of. Every year, Butler plays games at Conseco (Bankers Life), those don't go towards the attendance figures.

This year, when they beat IU there, there was SRO at > 18000 in attendance

(03-02-2013 08:21 AM)Title Wrote:  But you do make a good point, that I hadn't thought of. Every year, Butler plays games at Conseco (Bankers Life), those don't go towards the attendance figures.

This year, when they beat IU there, there was SRO at > 18000 in attendance

What was funny was the attendance after the IU-Butler game (ND-Purdue)

(03-02-2013 02:29 AM)Sactowndog Wrote:  

(03-01-2013 04:07 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  

(02-26-2013 01:06 PM)Jet915 Wrote:  We all know Butler is in and rightfully so, just curious why they get such low attendance given their success in recent years.

Butler probably has the worst home schedule of anyone in the bunch. Other than home dates with Louisville and Xavier, their next best home opponent last year was either Milwaukee or Valpo. Hard to sell season tickets with that type of schedule. One of the downsides of being in a big city with an NBA team is that no one will bother coming unless you're playing big names.

My brother is a Butler booster. They more than doubled their donation levels for last year at all levels. And yet they still had way more demand than the previous year. They're midway through fundraising for a $20 million overhaul of their stadium that will expand the high roller suites and make the whole arena operate more efficiently (not that it's bad now, but this can only help attendance).

Butler will do well in attendance once they're playing teams that people actually want to see.

People forget last year was not a good year for Butler as they didn't win the Horizon league. Plus they had an okay OOC plus the games they did sell out were maxed at 10K.

As Title says we will average 8000-9000K which means we sell out most games and draw 6-7 for tune up games. Playing at Hinkle has it downsides which is why they moved the Indiana game to Conseco. It will be interesting what they do in the Big East. The will pull more fans and could move to Conseco or they could stay at Hinkle. Wonder what others would prefer?

I have no problem with Butler's attendance, but we can't claim a problem with attendance due to them having a down year in 2011-12. Ticket buyers didn't know what kind of a year they were going to have nor that they' wouldn't win the Horizon until the season was over.

In 2011-12, Butler was coming off the 2nd of back-to-back seasons as the national runner up. That would normally mean a bump in attendance the following season, not a decline.

(03-02-2013 09:42 AM)Melky Cabrera Wrote:  

(03-02-2013 02:29 AM)Sactowndog Wrote:  

(03-01-2013 04:07 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  

(02-26-2013 01:06 PM)Jet915 Wrote:  We all know Butler is in and rightfully so, just curious why they get such low attendance given their success in recent years.

Butler probably has the worst home schedule of anyone in the bunch. Other than home dates with Louisville and Xavier, their next best home opponent last year was either Milwaukee or Valpo. Hard to sell season tickets with that type of schedule. One of the downsides of being in a big city with an NBA team is that no one will bother coming unless you're playing big names.

My brother is a Butler booster. They more than doubled their donation levels for last year at all levels. And yet they still had way more demand than the previous year. They're midway through fundraising for a $20 million overhaul of their stadium that will expand the high roller suites and make the whole arena operate more efficiently (not that it's bad now, but this can only help attendance).

Butler will do well in attendance once they're playing teams that people actually want to see.

People forget last year was not a good year for Butler as they didn't win the Horizon league. Plus they had an okay OOC plus the games they did sell out were maxed at 10K.

As Title says we will average 8000-9000K which means we sell out most games and draw 6-7 for tune up games. Playing at Hinkle has it downsides which is why they moved the Indiana game to Conseco. It will be interesting what they do in the Big East. The will pull more fans and could move to Conseco or they could stay at Hinkle. Wonder what others would prefer?

I have no problem with Butler's attendance, but we can't claim a problem with attendance due to them having a down year in 2011-12. Ticket buyers didn't know what kind of a year they were going to have nor that they' wouldn't win the Horizon until the season was over.

In 2011-12, Butler was coming off the 2nd of back-to-back seasons as the national runner up. That would normally mean a bump in attendance the following season, not a decline.

Again it's a function of building size. With a down year you might not sell out late in the year and your capacity limits attendance on good games. Average is always a function of seating capacity and success.

Last year, if you are really actually still talking about this, Butler was averaging in the mid 7000s and then were forced to host two CBI games to Delaware and Pitt. There may have 2k there.

Pitt hosted a CBI game and had like 1200.

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To close this conversation, it is forecasted by the capacity limit moving to the current average attendance that season ticket sales will drastically increase so the attendance doesn't have such severe peaks and troughs. Especially mid week games vs low majors in the OOC