Summer Chats: Men's Basketball Attendance

The summer is always the roughest part of the athletic sports season at the collegiate level. There's no active events, at least at UT Arlington, schedules for upcoming sports aren't released for a while and, specific to UTA, upcoming excitement for the arriving year is muted by the lack of fall sports on campus. With that said, I generally post the more random or non-calendar-specific items in June, July or August. I will now officially give it a title: Summer Chats.

Recently on Twitter, I and a couple other UTA fans engaged in a discussion about men's basketball attendance. It started off with WAC Hoops Digest showing a picture of a full College Park Center in its debut against the University of Texas-San Antonio. The text read that if new head coach K.T. Turner can pack the place, UTA would become one of the best home teams in the country. 

Of course, that point is entirely true. We have seen it before, both in big games and a couple of seasons that saw near 3,000 average fans in the seats. In addition to the high-talent teams, those crowds helped propel the team even further. 

Another Twitter user chimed in and with the first part of his tweet, said the student body doesn't support athletics as a whole, which is also true. With enrollment in the mid-to-high 40,000 range, the 1,454 average attended game this past season seems absurdly low, and assuredly it is. However, it is important to note several things.

UTA has a higher percentage of post-graduate students. The number of undergraduates, those that typically go to sporting events, is in the low 30,000 range. Now obviously, that number is still higher than a lot of UTA's current conference peers in total enrollment, but does put a little more context into the total enrollment number.

That number is further detracted by the category "foreign national" student, those that typically have low to no interest in typical American sports, but prefer things like cricket or soccer. The latest figures show four percent of the student body falls into that category.

There's also racial breakdown at UTA that isn't typical of an average student body. I have heard anecdotal tidbits or stereotypes about which ones go to sporting events and which ones tend not to but have not seen anything close to concrete evidence. So that's not a topic I want to wade into. So I'll just post the numbers here from the United States Department: Hispanic 31%, white 31%, black 15%, Asian 13%, other 6% and foreign 4%.

On the other hand, approximately 5,600 students live on-campus. I don't have the near-campus numbers, but I've been able to calculate many of the apartments near there and the number is several thousand. They represent a big opportunity to draw a higher fan base.

The remaining tens of thousands of students are commuter students. Commuter students tend not to go to sporting events.

So, the reality is that the potential pool of student fans is much smaller than what the enrollment number shows.

There's also the challenge of a saturated market. Three other Division I Universities are within 35 miles of UTA, all with a higher athletic profile and FBS football teams (not trying to make this a football post, but many sports fans only know a school based on football season). That's to say nothing of the DII, DIII and NAIA schools in and near the Dallas/Fort Worth area as well. In addition to a franchise locally in all four major sports, there's also the professional sports teams that play at the lower levels.

Finally, and what I think is the biggest factor, the fact that the team has next to no tradition has really impeded building any kind of following. One winning season in the 1960's, two in the '70's, two in the '80's and four in the '90's don't help build any legacy fans. Neither is the lack of a conference championship or NCAA appearance. Until Scott Cross took the reins in 2006, there were only two winning seasons out of six in aughts. They at least won their first conference championship in 2004, a shared title with two other schools.

In 64 University seasons and 59 seasons in an athletic conference, the team has earned two outright regular season conference titles, one co-championship, one conference tournament title in 42 opportunities, one NCAA tournament appearance, three NIT invites and two other postseason appearances. We're looking at once in a generation average of success.

And that's to say nothing about half a century in Texas Hall. For those who know, you know.

The remainder of the tweet was what I took exception to as the user claimed that when the mid-2010's was occurring, the CPC crowd was lucky to get 1,000.

While sub-1,000 numbers were the norm back in the Texas Hall era, especially after the demise of the football team, that was never the case at College Park Center until February 1, 2023. That was a rescheduled game against Tarleton State from a couple days prior due to a snow and ice storm. Ice was still on the ground. No one wanted to be out and about. That was the first and only men's basketball game at College Park Center that saw less than 1,000 fans.

The poster responded that only the NIT games were well attended. That's where I heavily disagreed. This may be a point of subjective perspective. With all the challenges listed above, there was one constant fact, attendance was generally improving year-over-year until Scott Cross was let go.

2011 was the last year Texas Hall saw a full season of games. The team averaged 811, tied for fourth best average since the turn of the century. The next year, College Park Center hosted the last four while the Hall had the first nine. The team averaged 2,131. Those four CPC games averaged just over 5,000,

The first full CPC year, the team dipped a bit 1,968, still more than double their old home. I also blame then-new Athletic Director Jim Baker for charging everyone, including students. That was a lost opportunity as students already pay the athletic fee to fund the Department. They should be allowed in games with just their student ID.

In the 2013/14 season, the average fell again to 1,872, while in 2014/15, it jumped a bit to 2,051.

The 2015/16 season set the all-team best average at 2,888. There were only three games below 2,000 that season. Additionally, the Mavericks hosted North Texas that year and a season high of 6,107 spectators cammed the arena, still the fourth largest single men's basketball game. The ten Sun Belt games averaged almost the same amount as the season average, 2,805, meaning the fans and students showed up for the games that mattered, including over 5,000 for a first-place showdown with Little Rock, seventh all-time.

The next year, I was highly disappointed in the turnout. For a team that was as dominant as it was and it was known they would be very good, the fan support dwindled a bit to 2,327 in the regular season. However, the non-conference slate of four games featured only two DI schools. While Texas Southern may be somewhat of a draw (that was the homecoming game with 4500+ in the crowd), Mount Saint Mary's out of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference sure won't. Division III UT-Dallas drew better. The Sun Belt games weren't attended well either, dropping to nearly 2,000 a game. The regular season average of 2,327, good for third all-time at UTA. The NIT games drew 5,390 and 6,336 respectively upping the average to 2,798. NIT games are still considered neutral games, but obviously draw heavily on the home crowd. 

The second best attended year came in 2017/18 when 2,346 attended on average. While not stellar by any stretch, and certainly disappointing considering the two prior years, it still showed what was missing from UTA's history, a slow steady rise. Even more odd to me, the North Texas game only drew 2,728, good for third best in the season. A repeat of the 6,000+ still only adds a couple of hundred to the season average, so the rest of the games weren't the bump I was expecting or hoping.

But remember, 729 fans were the average exactly a decade prior, a year they made the NCAA tournament. That's a 322% increase in a decade. Establishing a winning tradition takes time, is slow and methodical. 

Sadly, UTA fired Cross. The team has had one winning season since and has not averaged above 2,000 fans. Hard to be upset about the fans not caring when the initial appearance is that the school doesn't either.

Let's also look at one other factor, UTA's peer group. I began keeping track of UTA and its conference mate's attendance in all team sports, including sports UTA does not offer, in the 2014/15 season. When it comes to men's basketball, UTA ranked pretty highly compared to their conference rivals prior to Cross' firing:

• 2014/15 - 3rd out of 10,
• 15/16 - 3rd out of 11,
• 16/17 - 4th out of 12,
• 17/18 - 2nd out of 12, 
• Cross is fired,
• 18/19 - 8th out of 12,
• 19/20 - 7th out of 12, 
• 20/21 - COVID numbers, but 7th out of 12,
• 21/22 - 9th out of 12,
• and finally, this past year in the WAC - 11th out of 13.

The numbers the poster complained about were one of the best in the conference. Do we want more? Of course, but when UTA was winning, they were beating their conference peers. From 2014 to 2018, UTA beat every school in the conference at least once in average attendance except Louisiana. While we fans and stakeholders want better numbers, it is important to remember where the Mavericks are in their peer group. Appalachian State, for example, is like many other schools in the Sun Belt and doesn't have anywhere near the same challenges UTA does, yet UTA consistently beat them until the inexplicably fired Coach Cross debacle. UTA still beat App four out of five years post-Cross.

Using the Western Athletic Conference as a guide, the Mavericks hosted an NIT tournament quarterfinal game in 2017 while Utah Valley did the same in 2023. The Mavericks drew 6,336 while the Wolverines had 5,289 on hand to watch their game. UVU has a larger capacity venue and comparable enrollment in an urban area. The Wolverines' attendance was also boosted by having two in-state conference home games that were well above their season average of 2,514, including a 5,000 plus game. Counting all NIT games, UTA drew more in their NIT season than what UVU did. 

From the attendance numbers published by the NCAA from the 15/16 season, UTA outdrew the collective average of 18 DI conferences of 31. The Mavs were tied with the conference average of the Mid American Conference and were within spitting distance of the Horizon. The top 12 were one thousand fans more or higher. Only the top eight were more than double, conferences with multiple teams with a large fanbase, winning teams and postseason games.  

UTA isn't in the Northeast or Midwest. Basketball doesn't have the same draw in the South that it does elsewhere.

The user then suggested that capacity at College Park Center during those years was 33 percent full and if I was fine with that. I countered that capacity is a poor measure. Consider that 2,888 season. Had that occurred in Texas Hall, capacity goes from 41 percent to 80 percent. Does that actually change anything? If we had Troy's arena, the only other comparable venue in the Belt (though I hear that Georgia State debuted a very nice arena this year), UTA's capacity would have been 48 percent. Does that realistically change anything?

Reinforcing the idea that the South doesn't draw and capacity is a useless measure, the Texas Longhorns debuted their new CPC-inspired basketball home, Moody Center, this past athletic year. The facility has a capacity of 15,000. The first game against the University of Texas El Paso Miners drew 11,313, a capacity percentage of 75.4 percent. That is a school with a higher enrollment than UTA and a much, much, much, exponentially much higher casual fan base. That single-game number is enviable to 99 percent of the DI Universities. But their 74 percent capacity is lower than College Park Center's 89 percent debut. Yet no one would say CPC's pure number is better.

When winning started occurring in the Cross tenure, the fortunes started changing in many ways. The first NCAA tourney occurred, College Park Center opened and UTA started beating ranked teams. That's how you build attendance. Win meaningful games consistently. Add in that fact that name teams, known teams, or rivals draw more and there's a recipe for success.

This past season, UTA hosted three non-Division I schools. They tend to have a smaller fanbase so traveling teams are less likely to add to the gate. They hosted two good DI schools in North Texas and Nevada. I thought the crowd was larger than reported for the Mean Green game, but still low and I surprised Nevada didn't attract more attention. Coming off two losing seasons sandwiched around a .500 COVID year tends to suppress enthusiasm, though.

Bottomline is yes, we all want a higher crowd and an engaged student body. But UTA also isn't isolated in the challenges of building that fan base. Those eight conferences with double the average of UTA send multiple teams to the NCAA Tournament. UTA has never been a part of a conference with two teams in the dance (though they should have gotten an at-large in 2016/17). While it puts a greater onus on winning in the regular season, it does dampen the fan base if a team doesn't make it to its ultimate goal, as has happened to UTA so often.