We weren't going to see good attendance vs bad OOC teams in any event. Our fans are fickle--they only turn out when we have a strong team playing a good opponent. Early on they were expecting to see a team that was improved over last season's team.
Our Nichols State and 2nd half vs WVU debacles have convinced many fans otherwise. So, many have decided the season is already lost and have stopped attending.
Not sure if the soccer turnout had much to do with it, though. I suspect a lot of older fans are like me. They could care less about any soccer game. We are pleased that Pitt is doing well--because it is a Pitt team; but, otherwise don't care.
I went to soccer and there was a pretty good student turnout there so it may have affected it some. I didn't understand why they couldn't do the soccer game at 5 or even 6. A few soccer games kicked at 6 last night.
As for basketball attendance, it all starts with season ticket sales. Pitt only sold maybe 5000 or so. That is in large part due to the price. I bought lower corners because I felt that was a good value and the lower corners are mostly sold out. But the lower baseline being the same price were mostly unsold. And the lower sideline seats only had the midcourt section get mostly sold. The "foul line" sideline sections are mostly empty as fans felt the cost didn't warrant a purchase.
As for the uppers, we sold very few. I did feel the upper endzone was a good value at like $250 without a donation but not many people bought in that section or any other.
As I have said, I would have slashed ticket prices to bargain basement prices and put out a marketing campagin around the Select Your Seat thing. I would have had a press conference with Capel saying they need us, had commercials during games at Heinz and tables set up there to buy tickets.
I think Pitt has to wipe away from their minds that we once sold the place out with high prices. That's never going to happen again. We have to say to ourselves, this is essentially an expansion team with no fanbase at all. The Dixon II erosion + the Stallings debacle eliminated 90% of our fanbase. Pitt needed to do more to win these fans back. Winning games is going to take awhile. If you sell 10K season tickets, you get 3000 fans for UAPB instead od 1000. Not that that's good but its better.
To be fair, Pitt is probably going to make more money with their current pricing structure. Sold 5000 season tickets at high prices and the WVU and UNC games will sell out or come close at high single game prices. Throw in a few thousand single game purchases for Syr and UVa and they will make money but this strategy has allowed for a good crowd for only 4-5 games this year.
