Attendance?
- Thread starter RJH
- Start date
It was awful.....lowest of all time. You can find them all here. OG- Harvest Prep semi final with 6900 was the best of the weekend. The D4 and D3 finals both had right around 3300.....the two lowest attended state tourney games in history.
I think they need to go back to Columbus so they don't have to play the Title games on Sunday. If they could start the season a week Earlier so the title games are not the same weekend as the round of 64 and 32 would be a big help. Not to beat a dead horse but Nobody want to pay 16 dollars to watch the Super teams who are Head and shoulders better then everyone else win by 28 points.
Stirred not Shaken
Well-known member
Agree but I think the covid year hastened the downfall of attd. at HS sporting events. People were not allowed to go to games, either cancelled or limit capacity and found out they really did not miss going to HS sporting events.
Just in case you have not heard, Ohio State is not interested in making the Schott available to OHSAA for the boy's and Girl's state basketball tournaments. So what court were you thinking they could use that seats 8-10,000?
They reported the TV viewers were the highest ever.
With all the live stream options of today's games, many have found they can support their teams and cheer from home.
Stirred not Shaken
Well-known member
I don't call that support; I don't think the players can hear you from your living room. But I agree don't help attd.
Call it what you want but I know a lot of Browns, Buckeyes and Cavs fans who support those teams all season long from their couch. Find out how much Spectrum and others are paying OHSAA to stream the games live and see if that is not helping support.
Stirred not Shaken
Well-known member
Big difference these teams (not the Cavs) usually sell out and have big tv contracts. I have no idea how much spectrum pays OHSAA but if you want to support your team go to the games.
Yeah I was curious about that. I know Ohio State has been completely uncooperative so, with the great deal Dayton has given the OHSAA, they kind of have no choice. I was wondering why OSU doesn't mind holding the state wrestling at the Schott then. I certainly don't miss that arena but I miss the central location.
The Scale is larger but the support is the same. Many Buckeye fans have been to the Shoe but not the Rose Bowl. They Still supported them. You can be a HS season ticket holder supporting a team watching them on TV when they are 3 hours away.
I believe, to an extent, the community support of the teams playing are very similar to what they have been. The declining numbers are from the fans who used to have to travel to watch HS basketball games that did not have a team in the tournament but now can catch every game at home.
Stirred not Shaken
Well-known member
Certain areas maybe but overall, no it is not.
Round_Ball_Fan
New member
Haven't they been broadcasting these games live on TV for like, 15 years? Pretty sure I remember taping some games on ONN back in the day.
The lack of attendance can not be attributed to just one thing. Yes, streaming is available everywhere. Yes, being in Dayton hurts. Yes, playing on Sunday hurts. But the biggest reason(to me) is that none of these players have the pull to a neutral fan that LeBron had. or Andrew Lavender. or OJ Mayo/Bill Walker. or Jon Diebler. or Jared Sullinger.
Those guys were "must watch" players & generational talents. Have we had much of that in the past 10 years?
The lack of attendance can not be attributed to just one thing. Yes, streaming is available everywhere. Yes, being in Dayton hurts. Yes, playing on Sunday hurts. But the biggest reason(to me) is that none of these players have the pull to a neutral fan that LeBron had. or Andrew Lavender. or OJ Mayo/Bill Walker. or Jon Diebler. or Jared Sullinger.
Those guys were "must watch" players & generational talents. Have we had much of that in the past 10 years?
We can disagree on this but in the Hiland game most of the 3000 were credited for Hiland and their gym may seat less than 1800. If Harvest Prep was credited for 1000 fans at their Dayton games, that could be 400 more than what saw them play during the season at home. I know countless basketball fans who used to make a weekend of the state tournament that now DVR the games or watch them live at home OR a local watering hole that plays them.
ONN was not state wide and when it started they only did the finals. Now they do the entire weekend and Spectrum controls most of the state. Plus you can get a live feed from NFHS for $9 a game.
NO. But for most of those players all we had was news reports and stories to talk about so going to a game was the only way to see them. If Lebron was playing HS ball today, ever fan in Ohio could see him play 12 plus games before reaching state.
2024 shows a slight increase over 2023 by 3,288 in total announced attendance. Semifinal games showed an increase of 3,565, while the difference on Sunday Championship day showed an increase of 277.
2024 OHSAA State Boys Basketball Attendance #’s…End Of The Four Class Era
This year’s Ohio High School Athletic Association (OHSAA) boys basketball State Finals at UD Arena is the last to feature four classes
statelinesportsnetwork.net
CedarBuck92
Well-known member
I think they want to get rid of that too but OHSAA doesn't have to many other options that can handle wrestling in the current format. I would look for Wrestling to leave campus in the next 5 years too.
BKBIGDADDY
Member
BINGO!
petroglyph
Well-known member
You don't need a grain silo and cisterns to make a community.. Good thing ICHS folded in Celina now only have to fret about LCC or Lehman at playoff time. Guess Delphos St Johns gets an asterisk/criteria waver on the MAC wall of fame.
Plus wrestling requires a different type of need. Correct me if I am wrong but it's 3 days but it is actually one event each day open from start to finish. Basketball is actually 4 separate event each day with the facility being cleared, locked up, cleaned up and reopened. This happens 12 times for basketball and 3 times for wrestling.
Are you saying the OG and Harvest Prep have the same fan support? I've been to many of the Akron St V games and there fans are normally out numbered by 200%.
OHSAA needs to do better job of marketing the State Basketball Championship games. They cannot rely on local news to get the word out. The participating schools and fans were aware of the games and how to buy tickets, but many other neutral basketball fans were not. They likely were not even aware when the all-session tickets went on sale and where to buy them. Later, they might have known that the games were going on in Dayton but again did not want to be bothered to dig around OHSAA website to find how to buy a ticket. Better marketing by OHSAA might have improved the attendance figures some. Just my 2 cents.
They don't want to and certainly would jump at the chance to get out of that contract. But especially now with the girls competing there Ohio State won't kick them out and that avoids a firestorm.
Thavoice
Well-known member
Who said you had to?
Fact is, you either need to have an unreal talent that everyone wants to see, or teams that communities want to go and support.
The attendance was so bad because the student bodies didnt care to show up in most cases and the local communities DGAF.
To be quite honest, I usually watch all the games on TV but tuned out quite a bit because I didnt care to watch AAU teams masquerade as High School teams.
How many "AAU teams" were in the finals? I can only think of one that has been accused.
The Dock
Persona Non Grata
The TV wing of ONN may not have been “statewide”, but only because not all cable providers had the channel. It was very much a statewide concept that just didn’t have the physical coverage.
To an extent, it can be argued the same applies to Spectrum News 1. Incidentally, SN1 is a mirror of ONN in format and concept; it just is that SN1 has the benefit of being backed by a cable company that became a high-posture player in a marketplace that reduced so greatly due to umpteen mergers/acquisitions that they wound up on the right side of.