Where is everybody? UK sees empty seats as a made-for-TV challenge.
Before every Kentucky home game this season, a short film titled “All Roads” and narrated by Tom Hammond plays on Rupp Arena’s video screens. “All roads lead to Lexington …,” the Lexington native and former NBC sportscaster intones. “In Kentucky, we’re known by the way we care. In Kentucky, we’re one Big Blue Nation.”
Borrowing from Stephen Foster, Hammond concludes this video rallying cry by saying, “All roads lead to My Old Kentucky Home.”
Judging by the noticeable number of empty seats at several games this season, the roads to Rupp Arena have not been clogged.
More than once, UK Coach John Calipari has appealed to fans to attend games in order to encourage his latest freshman-dependent team. After the victory over Mount St. Mary’s, he pointed out that empty seats are “not just a Kentucky issue. It’s everywhere.”
Or as Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany said, “If Kentucky is struggling, then just about everybody is struggling.
According to NCAA records, average attendance at Division I games has declined in each of the last 12 seasons. The average attendance for 2019 NCAA Tournament games was the lowest for that event since 2001.
And Kentucky basketball is not the only iconic college program making the wrong kind of attendance news. Notre Dame football’s streak of home sellouts ended in a Nov. 16 game against Navy. Until then, Notre Dame had sold out 273 straight home games.
Speaking of college football, average attendance at Division I FBS games has declined in each of the last five seasons. And Friday night’s Pac-12 championship game between Utah and Oregon, played in Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., drew just more than half that venue’s capacity (38,679 fans for 68,500 seats).
When asked to explain the empty seats, several people cited television as a factor.
“Sometimes, especially against a lesser opponent, it’s easier to stay home and watch it on television,” Hammond said.
Random interviews before Kentucky played Lamar sent a message that fans still care. A couple from Winchester, Billy and Shawna Hamilton, celebrated their fourth wedding anniversary at the game. Two days earlier, Billy underwent a heart catheterization procedure.
The Hamiltons sat in section 240, a section reserved for students above the E-Rupp-tion Zone that had been largely empty for more than one early-season game.
“I think we get a better perspective on TV,” Billy said. “Especially when you’re in the nose bleed (seats).”
Television also provides instant replays, commentary, relatively inexpensive viewing and no waiting in line for refreshments, while also negating the hassle of parking and travel to and from.
UK officials have pondered the empty seats. As Guy Ramsey, the director of strategic communications, said, “We view our greatest competition for fans coming to games as simply staying at home.”
To compete with television, UK seeks to create “the most engaging atmosphere that we can,” Ramsey said. Hence, there is music, videos, replays, T-shirts fired into the stands, on-court hosts Ravi Moss and Maria Montgomery, indoor fireworks, a fan shooting a half-court shot and “Wizard of Oz” plumes of gas shot into the air.
Television presents a catch-22. College programs want the exposure and revenue produced by selling the rights to televise games. But televising games might cause a sizable number of people to stay home and watch the game.
“I don’t think you get out of that box,” Ramsey said. “Because both ends of it are too important in who we are and what we do. (Without) the money that comes from television, we could not compete at the level we do. At the same time, without incredible game-day atmosphere and revenue that comes from fans coming to games, we can’t do it either.
“There’s no getting out of the box. We have to strike the right balance.”
Twin sisters who sat in Section 214 at the Lamar game, Lisa Pigman and Diane Sawyer, said ticket prices prevent some fans from attending. Season-ticket prices range from $950 per seat in the upper arena to the first four rows closest to the court: $1,500 per seat with a required $5,000 K Fund donation per seat.
Deputy director of athletics DeWayne Peevy said that ticket prices are not a significant factor. UK sold almost all its season tickets for 2019-20.
“So, the issue in terms of attendance is not people buying the seats,” Ramsey said. “It’s people actually buying the seats and not attending the game.”
The announced attendance and actual number of people in seats reflect this disparity. UK’s announced attendance, which is based roughly on tickets sold, averaged 19,821 going into Saturday’s game against Fairleigh Dickinson. In that same six-game period, the scanned count of people with tickets, media credentials and other passes that have a bar code averaged 14,161. That translates into about 28 percent of ticket holders not coming to games.
Numbers aside, Hammond summed it up by saying of the empty expanse for some games in Section 240, “I never thought I’d see that at Rupp Arena.”
Big Ten leads
Among conferences, the Big Ten has led the nation in average attendance for men’s basketball every season since 1975-76. Commissioner Jim Delany said the Big Ten has been studying how to boost attendance for at least 10 years.
“It’s a matter of wanting to see quality games,” he said. “And in a lot of cases, quality games have to be conference games or strong opponents from other conferences or (teams) that are certainly situated in the basketball ecosphere.”
The Big Ten expanded its conference schedule from 16 to 20 games. It mandated two conference games be played in November or early December. “So we don’t try to avoid the football, but leverage the football,” Delany said.
Delany envisions the Big Ten someday staging a football-basketball weekend featuring, say, two Michigan-Ohio State games.
The Big Ten also jumped at the chance to replace the Big East in a made-for-TV challenge with ACC teams, Delany said. And eight Big Ten teams annually play in the Gavitt Games, which honor former basketball luminary Dave Gavitt. Michigan State played at Seton Hall in one such game this season.
The Big Ten coaches have been supportive of these moves to play more attractive games, Delany said.
“They said, ‘Well, someday, we’ll be playing everybody twice,’” Delany said. “I said, ‘I hope so. You know, why not? Why wouldn’t you play 26 conference games?’
“It’s what people want. It’s what the players want. It’s what television wants. Why wouldn’t you? You cannot bring some of the teams being brought into our arenas and expect people to be enthusiastic about those games.”
UK deputy director of athletics DeWayne Peevy acknowledged that low profile of UK’s home opponents so far had been a factor in attendance. “I’m not crazy enough to think the opponents that we play don’t have an impact,” he said.
Correction
Reader Jim Holler, a Professor Emeritus in UK’s Department of Chemistry, called attention (actually, emailed attention) to a mistake in Friday’s story about Kentucky playing Michigan in London.
The story mistakenly included the 1998 San Juan Shootout as a past example of games UK has played in foreign countries. As Holler noted, Puerto Rico has been a territory of the United States since 1898.
Donations accepted
St. Mark’s Church in Nate Sestina’s hometown of Emporium, Pa., is hoping to raise $1,000 in order to buy a big-screen television so people can gather and watch UK games. As of Friday, $850 had been raised, Father Paul Siebert said.
Donations can be made at iGiveCatholic.org. Once on the site, search for St. Mark, Emporium.
Happy birthday
To Randy Noll. He turned 70 on Thursday. … To former Auburn coach Cliff Ellis. He turned 74 on Thursday. … To Sam Malone. He turned 28 on Friday. … To Cliff Hagan. He turns 88 on Monday. … To Eric Bledsoe. He turns 30 on Monday. … To Cameron Mills. He turns 44 on Tuesday.
