Attendance

 
Today the NCAA released the attendance records for men's basketball from last season. In terms of total attendance the WCC is not well represented in the top-100 list. Only BYU (13th) and Gonzaga (94th) make the list. The small gyms in the WCC make it impossible to draw large crowds. Gonzaga sold out every home game last season and still barely made the top-100. Even Duke, one of the sport's best known brands, managed only to reach 47th due to Cameron Indoor Stadium's old-school number of seats.

The conference as a whole ranked 11th when counting home games played by WCC teams as well as the conference tournament. Based on those criteria the WCC totaled 647,789 spectators last season for an average of 4,277 per game. Every conference that drew more spectators than the WCC drew least one million spectators. The conference closest to the WCC is the Mid-American Conference, which trails by more than 94,000.

Here are some interesting tidbits from this data.

• 19 teams, including BYU, average more spectators per game than Pepperdine accumulated over the whole season.
• If you are to remove Gonzaga from consideration, BYU accounted for 56.3% of the WCC's total attendance.
• Home games for WCC teams drew an average of 3,972 spectators. Removing the outlier that is BYU and the Marriott Center's average attendance that number drops to 2,470. Taking it a step farther and removing Gonzaga and the McCarthey Athletic Center the number drops to 1,966.
• Last season the Big West conference consisted of ten teams; Pacific accounted for 11.28% of the league's total attendance.
• Speaking of Pacific, the Tigers' average of 2,105 would have ranked 5th in the WCC last season. I must assume the average will be higher this season with BYU, Gonzaga and Saint Mary's visiting Stockton, rather than a bunch of UC-somewheres.
• The WCC average attendance dropped by seven spectators per game from the previous season, making it the most stable conference in that regard. Next closest is the MAC which gained 12.
• Over the whole season -- home, road and neutral games, the Cougars played in front of 407,589 spectators. Compare that to their home only total and you'll get some idea just how massive the Marriott Center is.
• On Gonzaga game days approximately 1 out of every 112 people in the Spokane/Coeur d'Alene CSA are at the Kennel.