Attendance

[Kreitzer]

https://www.teamusa.org/USA-Wrestling/Features/2018/April/10/Iowa-Attendance

Not good. Pitt does a bad job of marketing. People in Pittsburgh have plenty of options on the weekend. The Athletic Dept needs to sell Pitt sports.

 

[Mikefln]

4 Schools within 3 hours of Pitt on that list.

2) Penn State
3) Ohio State
16) West Virginia
18) Lock Haven

It would be interesting to see Edinboro, Clarion, Kent St, and Ohio numbers compared to Pitt as those schools are all in the same 3 hour footprint.

 

[thom67]

What is Pitt's attendance?

 

[Dallas Burgher]

What is Pitt's attendance?

It was not in the article. We were not even on the list.

 

[omega]

With a little bit of marketing, we should be able to match the attendance number of Lehigh and Lock Haven. This is Pittsburgh, we like wrestling.

 

[Mikefln]

With a little bit of marketing, we should be able to match the attendance number of Lehigh and Lock Haven. This is Pittsburgh, we like wrestling.

The problem is Pittsburgh does not like wrestling. Don't confuse the WPIAL with Pittsburgh. The outer areas like wrestling and it may be too hard to get into Oakland from Washington Co, Greene Co, Fayette Co, Westmoreland Co. on work nights. That is also only a concern if they were inclined to go to begin with. They live in rural areas for reasons, they may not like the city life (or traffic) or they may be fans of other schools. Add in the fact that there is always wrestling practice or a HS dual meet and that makes it a little tougher for a wrestling fan with kids in programs to make it.

Say what you want but it is easier to get over a 1,000 Central PA residents to show up at Lock Haven for a Dual meet than it is to get a 1,000 City residents w/ 10x the population to show up at Pitt for a Dual.

 

[thom67]

All Pitt wrestling fans are not rural. Places like North Allegheny have lots of wrestling fans. If we have some wrestlers who are national contenders, the fans will show up. Not necessarily from the city proper. Back in the day, the Fieldhouse drew over 3 thousand a match when Pitt had good teams.

 

[Mikefln]

I didn't say all wrestling fans were rural but you better believe the great majority of them are. Look no further than the best WPIAL schools. Outside of NA who is generally considered to be the best? You might get a good run like Bethel Park did or a couple good kids from Shaler/Keystone Oaks/ North Hills, but the majority of the time the best schools year after year are from out of Allegheny Co.

 

[thom67]

What is important is where the wrestling fans are, not where are the good wrestlers. There are lots of wrestling fans who live in Allegheny county. If Pitt puts out a good product the fans will come.

 

[Kreitzer]

Pitt needs to put a good team on the mat AND promote it. I went to a match this year and paid $5 or maybe $8 - I don't quite remember. The next week, our youth coach told me that Pitt offered him $5 (or $8, whatever) tickets if he brought a group of 15 or more to a match. I told him that was no discount from what I had just paid for two people. That just seems like jerking people around. The bottom line is that he didn't take anyone and didn't go himself. And I don't know what the SID does for wrestling, but newspaper coverage is virtually non-existent.