Nobody home

aside from the bad defense, what really disturbed me in the Minnesota box score was the attendance. and it is not limited to that game: NU has averaged 56% of arena capacity in four conference home games, including an abysmal 2872 fans, or 35% of capacity, for the Minnesota game.

i certainly don’t expect people to turn out en masse for non-conference games – and don’t worry, they didn’t, as attendance hovered around 3K – but no one is coming for big ten opponents either. in terms of the major Welsh Ryan visitor take-overs, we don’t play U of I at home this season and Wisconsin, IU and Iowa are yet to come, but only the Michigan and Michigan State games have resulted in more full seats than empty ones. maybe they need to get the marketing department cranking out some more CTA advertising campaigns.

the ncaa doesn’t have data on attendance for the 07/08 season, but after a quick glance over last year’s stats, it appears NU’s average attendance was lower than all but three schools in the major conferences; only Colorado, South Florida and Miami averaged less fans per game. even bottom-dwellers Rutgers and Oregon State outdrew us, and John Brady just got fired from a bad team that averaged 7000 SEASON TICKET HOLDERS.

again, I’m not calling for or expecting a packed house every night, but rather pointing this out as another consideration for the new athletic director. I can’t imagine NU going with an ol’ boy AD-type (e.g. Frank Broyles or Gerald Myers), so the new guy is bound to look at more than just wins and losses. when your hoops arena has a capacity of 8117, and this season 9 of 11 games have drawn totals starting with a 2 or a 3, that’s almost as alarming as finishing 6-21. almost.