SEC asks ESPN for help with college basketball attendance
Jon Solomon | jsolomon@al.com By Jon Solomon | jsolomon@al.com
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on February 08, 2014 at 8:06 AM, updated February 08, 2014 at 8:07 AM
In an attempt to improve declining men's basketball attendance, the SEC is talking with ESPN about finding better start times and offering ESPN content only accessible for fans at arenas.
SEC teams enter the final month of the regular season averaging 10,126 fans per game in announced attendance, down 1 percent from last year at this time. SEC teams averaged 10,571 fans in 2012-13, third in the country but its lowest since 1986-87.
Half of the SEC's teams' crowds are up and half down in 2013-14. Many of the teams that are down possess some of the largest fan bases: Missouri (23 percent decrease), Tennessee (11 percent), Vanderbilt (11 percent) and Alabama (10 percent). All four of those teams may be left out of the NCAA Tournament.
Entering this season, the average crowd nationally at men's basketball games had declined six straight years. One reason for the lower national average could be more schools in Division I -- and in the post-expansion SEC, for that matter. But there's a larger issue as basketball fights for regular-season relevance and with so many games televised.
"People in our league would say the SEC needs to get stronger and win more games and have more quality teams, and I would agree with all of that," said Mark Whitworth, SEC associate commissioner for men's basketball. "But we've already engaged ESPN in saying, 'Hey, it makes great television for you when all our venues are packed. If it's not, it diminishes the product.'"
ESPN analyst Bruce Pearl, Tennessee's former coach, said he sees too few home-court advantages in the SEC.
"That's what they do in football," Pearl said. "Those are the things that are absolutely required, and we're not doing it in the SEC. We're just not. We have too many venues where there are too many empty seats."
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