Not close to a sellout tonight

[Fsgolfdr]

This discussion needs to be done with the new AD and chancellor and a sports marketing firm. There were a lot of excuses for the attendance last night , time, parkway etc ,but this was Syracuse the place needs to be full. With the aging fan base why hasn't the zoo alumni filled up those seats ? Somethings wrong down there . This isn't a 70,000 seat stadium and while the last few seasons haven't been good they haven't laid an egg like the FB team has with their bad loses and last year they had some great home wins.
Ps :3 ticket package with a $25 donation tacked on making it more expensive than buying the tickets outright through the ticket office ( let's not discuss stubhub or scalpers $5/ game ) well whoever thought that idea up should be fired . Those ideas are why the place isn't filled.

 

[JimPL]

Pitt had 10,249 without the students being in school and it was a 9:00 PM start. ESPN controls the start time so there is only so much Pitt can do.

 

[Tiger Paul Lives]

I don't think this is just a Pitt phenomenon. I watch a lot of basketball games and it is even happening with the blue bloods that aren't playing a huge match up game. I was watching the UNC/Clemson before heading down last night and the upper level shots of the Dean Dome was far from filled. I have watched many other games with the same issues.

 

[Sean Miller Fan]

Ps :3 ticket package with a $25 donation tacked on making it more expensive than buying the tickets outright through the ticket office ( let's not discuss stubhub or scalpers $5/ game ) well whoever thought that idea up should be fired . Those ideas are why the place isn't filled.

Is this really true? Is the 3 game mini package really more expensive than buying the 3 games separately? I think it is but can you imagine how stupid that would be if that were true?

As for the crowd, as I said, Pitt sold very few single game tickets but the good news was that there were very few no-shows from the season ticket holders. Most of the purchased seats were filled. So, YEA, season ticket holders actually showed up! Thats a start.

The students filled the sideline sections and were as good as they could be with their smaller numbers. Not a bad showing with school out.

It was kind of a dull game so the crowd wasnt really into it until late. It was played at a slower pace (which the zone tends to do) without a lot of runs, spurts, highlight reel plays, so the crowd wasnt that into it......but late on, they were loud and really into the game.

The biggest question for Scott Barnes is why they had 2000 empty seats for Syracuse. Yes, 9PM and the Pens hurt sales but they knew those would be factors going in. Perhaps Pitt tickets are just too expensive nowadays. I know people knock me for getting them on Stubhub but the reason I do it is because Pitt's prices far exceed actual value. So, maybe if they priced this game at $30 instead of $65, they would have sold it out. Syr for $30 seems super cheap but nobody paid $65 so obviously price was at least somewhat of a factor.

I think Barnes needs to make massive changes to the basketball ticketing process on the offseason.

 

[JoeScaz]

I'm here and the attendance sucks. Looks like the crowd from the Detroit game. Pitiful.

You are truly nuts. Legit 10,400.. and crowd "sucks".... amazing

 

[PittInMissouri]

Man, I hate to stick up for SMF ( ), but what are you talking about? He said that there were lots of unsold seats in the upper deck ends and corners, and in fact there ended up being lots of empty seats in the upper deck end zone and corners. Enough, in fact, that Pitt didn't even pretend that the game was a sellout or even all that close to it. Pitt announced 10,429. That means just over 2,000 empty, unsold seats.

So why would he need to come back and admit how wrong he was when he was actually 100% correct?

"There will be about 500 students there"

That was clearly wrong. The students were loud and even the announcers commented a bunch about how great the students were given it was during Xmas break. Sure, there were some empty seats elsewhere, but would another 2000 Pittsburghers that sit on their hands have made a difference anyway? I mean, the excuse is that the mediocre competition is the reason it hasn't been sold out, but then what's the excuse for Syracuse? How is Barnes to blame for that one? Or maybe, just maybe, Pittsburgh isn't a great basketball town or even a sports town? Heck, in the fieldhouse days, I think any of us would have taken 10,500 on a Wednesday at 9p a few days after Xmas...

 

[Sean Miller Fan]

"There will be about 500 students there"

That was clearly wrong. The students were loud

How so? There were no Zoo members behind the basket?

 

[HailToPitt1985]

Lol who cares if you "doubt" I was there. I know I was and when I posted the attendance remark it was 5-10 minutes before the game and the Pete looked half empty. In another thread after the game I mentioned that although it didn't look like it early on, the attendance ended up being nice.

Band played Paula Abdul's Cold Hearted Snake and Bon Jovi's Livin on a Prayer on a couple of the commercial breaks.

I also said that if you were there, you didn't know what you were looking at. Which is what happened in your case. Approaching 11,000 on a late Wednesday night in the middle of the Christmas break. And if you did go to games on a regular basis, you'd know that The Pete is rarely filled 5 minutes before the game. It gets filled and at maximum capacity at about the 5 minute mark of the game in progress. Also, last night traffic was horrible from 279 north and because of the Parkway East being shut down. It was a late arriving crowd.

But to be honest, attendance is a topic for losers and for the accountants at Pitt to count. I don't care how many went to the game. It doesn't affect the outcome and I was there. If attendance did affect the outcome, I'd question the coaching and ability of the players.

 

[R-M-U-h-o-o-p-s-f-a-n]

"There will be about 500 students there"

That was clearly wrong. The students were loud and even the announcers commented a bunch about how great the students were given it was during Xmas break. Sure, there were some empty seats elsewhere, but would another 2000 Pittsburghers that sit on their hands have made a difference anyway? I mean, the excuse is that the mediocre competition is the reason it hasn't been sold out, but then what's the excuse for Syracuse? How is Barnes to blame for that one? Or maybe, just maybe, Pittsburgh isn't a great basketball town or even a sports town? Heck, in the fieldhouse days, I think any of us would have taken 10,500 on a Wednesday at 9p a few days after Xmas...

Didn't the Fieldhouse only hold around close to 7,000 before renovation.
Only around 4,000 after the renovation.
How could 10,000 + fit in there?



Link to Fieldhouse wiki page below

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitzgerald_Field_House

 

[JS School]

I also said that if you were there, you didn't know what you were looking at. Which is what happened in your case. Approaching 11,000 on a late Wednesday night in the middle of the Christmas break. And if you did go to games on a regular basis, you'd know that The Pete is rarely filled 5 minutes before the game. It gets filled and at maximum capacity at about the 5 minute mark of the game in progress. Also, last night traffic was horrible from 279 north and because of the Parkway East being shut down. It was a late arriving crowd.

But to be honest, attendance is a topic for losers and for the accountants at Pitt to count. I don't care how many went to the game. It doesn't affect the outcome and I was there. If attendance did affect the outcome, I'd question the coaching and ability of the players.

I think he said that initially the crowd was sparse. Maybe by "initially" he meant 8:30. Or maybe he doesn't know the meaning of "sparse".

 

[MrGee]

The Pete may not have been filled, but the place was loud as the Panthers rallied. Great energy and people outside the Zoo actually STOOD UP AND CHEERED down the stretch. A memorable win, even without that whiner Boeheim on the 'Cuse bench.... I wonder if Jimbo was disguised as the fat dude behind the basket with the orange and blue wig?

Place looked packed on tv and sounded pretty loud

 

[PittInMissouri]

Didn't the Fieldhouse only hold around close to 7,000 before renovation.
Only around 4,000 after the renovation.
How could 10,000 + fit in there?



Link to Fieldhouse wiki page below

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitzgerald_Field_House

Well yeah, that's kind of my point. In my time (late 90's/early 2000's), I don't remember a lot of sold out games, and even a sellout would not have been 10,500. That many people, in Pittsburgh, on a Wednesday after xmas at 9pm, isn't that bad.

 

[buckage]

Good grief...attendance threads on the bball board?

 

[PittIsIt17]

The Pete may not have been filled, but the place was loud as the Panthers rallied. Great energy and people outside the Zoo actually STOOD UP AND CHEERED down the stretch.

I always enjoy when people outside the Zoo learn that they're allowed to make noise. Those of us in the Zoo love the added energy and we wish it would happen more often. Just think of how difficult it would be to play us in the Pete if we had the noise level (on a consistent basis) that we had last night after Jeter's best dunk yesterday in the rally.

 

[Joe the Panther Fan]

"There will be about 500 students there"

That was clearly wrong.

I guess it depends on how far you want to stretch the word "about" but there weren't more than 700 students there tops. Probably less than that. There were no students in sections 6A, 6B, 6I and 6J. That's four of the nine lower level student sections (counting the section the band sits in). Obviously there also were no students in the upstairs overflow section. So "about 500" was certainly in the ballpark.

The students who were there were great. We don't have to pretend that there were a lot more of them there than there really were for that to be true. So why bother?

 

[Sean Miller Fan]

I guess it depends on how far you want to stretch the word "about" but there weren't more than 700 students there tops. Probably less than that. There were no students in sections 6A, 6B, 6I and 6J. That's four of the nine lower level student sections (counting the section the band sits in). Obviously there also were no students in the upstairs overflow section. So "about 500" was certainly in the ballpark.

The students who were there were great. We don't have to pretend that there were a lot more of them there than there really were for that to be true. So why bother?

That is now 2 of my posts that you are defending in this thread. What's gotten into you?

 

[Joe the Panther Fan]

That is now 2 of my posts that you are defending in this thread. What's gotten into you?

I know, something's wrong. I have to cut this out!

 

[woodpecker1]

Thank you! The students do bring the energy and its sad that the rest of the crowd save a few hundred don't get more involved but its a sedate sit on their hands fanbase - unfortunately!

I beg to differ. I've attended most games at the Pete since it opened... Granted it is an older crowd, but I have a ton of memories where the crowd brought it big time.

 

[MrGee]

Well yeah, that's kind of my point. In my time (late 90's/early 2000's), I don't remember a lot of sold out games, and even a sellout would not have been 10,500. That many people, in Pittsburgh, on a Wednesday after xmas at 9pm, isn't that bad.

think about this, if the game was in Syracuse there would have been more than twice that -- an area with a population less than half of the Pittsburgh area

 

[KiwiJeff]

think about this, if the game was in Syracuse there would have been more than twice that -- an area with a population less than half of the Pittsburgh area

Yeah, that in spite of the Syracuse NHL team playing that night.

 

[HailToPitt1985]

think about this, if the game was in Syracuse there would have been more than twice that -- an area with a population less than half of the Pittsburgh area

LOL! Yeah, right. You know, Syracuse has SOOOO much to offer as far as entertainment and other sports teams. Have you ever been to Syracuse? It's a dump and there's nothing there except snow and cold weather 6 months of the year. Did you even think before you posted this?

 

[MrGee]

LOL! Yeah, right. You know, Syracuse has SOOOO much to offer as far as entertainment and other sports teams. Have you ever been to Syracuse? It's a dump and there's nothing there except snow and cold weather 6 months of the year. Did you even think before you posted this?

I've been to Syracuse many times and Pittsburgh many times--why do all you yinzers think that the burgh is the garden spot of the world---it ain't much different than Syracuse and the weather isn't that much better either, other than the snowfall amount---I was just trying to point out that for some reason, the burgh doesn't support Pitt, and that when you look at the #s vs Syracuse it makes no sense---so the Penguins were playing, so what---it wouldn't matter---Syracuse happens to have an AHL team that usually gets 5-6k---so relatively speaking, it has about equal impact if there is one

 

[JoeScaz]

I've been to Syracuse many times and Pittsburgh many times--why do all you yinzers think that the burgh is the garden spot of the world---it ain't much different than Syracuse and the weather isn't that much better either, other than the snowfall amount---I was just trying to point out that for some reason, the burgh doesn't support Pitt, and that when you look at the #s vs Syracuse it makes no sense---so the Penguins were playing, so what---it wouldn't matter---Syracuse happens to have an AHL team that usually gets 5-6k---so relatively speaking, it has about equal impact if there is one

um... you aren't remotely close. I go to Syracuse often for work.. and I enjoy it.. but it is far behind Pittsburgh in terms of cultural events, sports, and everything else... It is a trumped up college town... and that's ok.

Wait, "the burgh doesn't support Pitt" is just a silly thing to say. Pitt has averaged 10k in that building for 15 years--- with sellouts and few empty seats for conference games.

Yes, we know the carrier dome regularly gets 20k, and often pushes 30-33k for huge games.. but it pretty much ends there. In the darkest days of Pitt football, we outdrew SU, who's capacity is 18k under Heinz Field,... not even close.

Then there is this:

The Pittsburgh Steelers- Storied NFL franchise, getting 60k+ in the house 10 dates per year.
The Pittsburgh Pirates- Averaging 27-28k for 82 home dates.
The Pittsburgh Penguins- Averaging 18k for 40 home dates.

DO YOU HAVE ANY MORE QUESTIONS?

 

[KiwiJeff]

I've been to Syracuse many times and Pittsburgh many times--why do all you yinzers think that the burgh is the garden spot of the world---it ain't much different than Syracuse and the weather isn't that much better either, other than the snowfall amount---I was just trying to point out that for some reason, the burgh doesn't support Pitt, and that when you look at the #s vs Syracuse it makes no sense---so the Penguins were playing, so what---it wouldn't matter---Syracuse happens to have an AHL team that usually gets 5-6k---so relatively speaking, it has about equal impact if there is one

All this post deserves is a big LOL.