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Montana Attendance from 1977 - 2003

Grizbeer

Grizbeer

Well-known member
I got this information from NCAA, and thought it was interesting to watch the decline in attendance. What year did UM start a winter break in January? When did the student section get moved? How does this compare with the attendance decline? It appears that attendance is lightly related to winning, but not completely, as the number of fans per win continues to drop. 94-95 looks like the year interest dropped off. Notice how high Montana attendance ranked nationally until then. Clearly Montana used to be a basketball school. This year's attendance is headed in the right direction, hopefully we can get back to where we used to be.

Season Average Att. Rank Record Att/Win
77 - 78 8,204 44 20-8 410
78 - 79 7,175 56 14-13 513
79 - 80 6,393 69 17-11 376
80 - 81 7,028 61 19-9 370
81 - 82 7,436 53 17-10 437
82 - 83 6,986 62 21-8 333
83 - 84 6,876 65 23-7 299
84 - 85 6,915 68 22-8 314
85 - 86 7,511 59 21-11 358
86 - 87 6,274 77 18-11 349
87 - 88 6,574 76 18-11 365
88 - 89 6,416 76 20-11 321
89 - 90 5,589 101 18-11 311
90 - 91 6,160 91 23-8 268
91 - 92 7,034 76 27-4 261
92 - 93 6,233 82 17-11 367
93 - 94 6,047 91 19-9 318
94 - 95 5,688 none 21-9 271
95 - 96 5,327 none 20-8 266
96 - 97 4,787 none 21-11 228
97 - 98 4,455 none 16-14 278
98 - 99 2,306 none 13-14 177
99 - 00 4,462 none 17-11 262
00 - 01 3,569 none 16-11 223
01 - 02 3,668 none 16-15 229
02 - 03 4,491 none
Average 6,052 309

77- 80 7,257 56 433
80 - 85 7,048 62 351
85 - 90 6,473 78 341
90 - 95 6,232 85 297
95 - 00 4,758 259
00 - 02 3,619 226

98-99, and 02-03 figures not included in averages.
 
Thanks for the info. I had wondered about that. Just goes to show how hard it is to be both a football and basketball school unless your name is Texas, Michigan, or Florida. Look how in 1995-96 during the football national championship, Montana went 20-8, but attendence was only 5,300 a game. Still, the best medicine for getting fans to come is winning.
 
Part of reason Mens bb declined in early '90s is because Women's basketball became quite popular.

When Football team won the national championship in 1995, attendance for both men's and women's basketball declined.

After field house remodel, bb fans found better things to do during the year bb teams played in sentinel and never returned. I think some of those returned for the Griz-Bobcat game last saturday.

But, I will tell you the atmosphere in the basketball games for mens was not up to par in 1988 as it was in 1984. I watched Griz bb in the student section from 1978 to 1983, and one season as a season ticket holder in 1984 before I left for Seattle for four years. When I returned in 1988, I noticed a change in the crowd. Enthusiasm was quite the same. Students were not as vocal. Atmosphere wasn't that bad but it certainly wasn't as good. Definitely much better than it is now.

Today, the atmosphere is quite bad, but I do see some improvement from the last few years under Holst and latter years under Taylor. This is a sign that attendance may just improve. This years attendance is better than last year.
 
I posted this earlier in the year - since we are discussing attendance again I thought I would move it up.
 
What it looks like to me is that Griz may need to win the conference regular season and Big Sky Conference tournament, and then follow it up with a bigger season the next year.

I would say that interest in the basketball program occurred much earlier than Grizbeer stated. More like the end of the '80s in 1989 when the Griz football team made their furthest push into the playoffs in 1989 when football team made it to the semi-finals.

Only a couple of seasons where the BB team won the Big Sky (both conference and tournament including hosting the tournament) has the attendance increased. And then dropped considerably after 1992.

I have to also say the atmosphere changed a bit sometime in the mid '80s. I have stated a reason for that in the "GO WATCH BASKETBALL" thread. When the atmosphere changes, that can also lead to fans not being as excited and leave the game.

Thus, you cannot refute the role of the success of the football team in the decline of the attendance of basketball. Winning the Big Sky Conference and tournament will help attendance. But it will be key that the Griz BB team continue that success in more than one season.

But, I have to add, the Big Sky Conference was getting weaker during the '90s also, and that lead to less interest.

Plus, in 1985-1986, attendance peaked that year and then dropped quite a bit after that. Could the upset loss to the Bobcats in the championship game turn away so many fans away from basketball?

It never was the same after that except it got relatively close in 1991-92. So, an argument could be that it was after the 1985-86 season that interest started to decline. And the more I think about it, I have to say that is the year that Griz attendance peaked and interest declined from then on. Attendance up to the 1985-86 season has been on a steady increase. So interest was certainly increasing up till then.
Interest only peaked because of winning in 1990-92, but dropped soon after.

So in conclusion, Interest dropped after 1985-86 season.
 
I'm pretty sure they moved the student section when they remodeled...I'm not sure exactly what year that was because I wasn't here...

Kennedy is trying to create a better student atmosphere by giving us more space courtside which is a plus but the students rarely fill it.
 
98-99 was the year of the remodel - all home games were held at Sentinel High School gym (which is larger and nicer than many BSC arena's).

Rabbit we defintally need rivalry games. The Idaho games of old were the best, but last years game didn't have that much excitement, and now Gonzaga seems to be getting there. But a rivalr doesn't mean playing each other every year, it is more personal for the players, coaches and fans. Not sure how we get that with SDSU?
 
Grizbeer said:
98-99 was the year of the remodel - all home games were held at Sentinel High School gym (which is larger and nicer than many BSC arena's).

Rabbit we defintally need rivalry games. The Idaho games of old were the best, but last years game didn't have that much excitement, and now Gonzaga seems to be getting there. But a rivalr doesn't mean playing each other every year, it is more personal for the players, coaches and fans. Not sure how we get that with SDSU?
Click to expand...

Like any rivalry it builds as we play each other and take games from one another. SDSU is a basketball school we could have some good match ups (Men are 11-0 and ranked #5 in NCAA D-II, Women are 7-0 and ranked #1, they are also the defending National Champions). We are ready for our move to D-I next year. Our fans also travel well, that always adds to a rivalry. Good luck with your season this year I am looking forward to playing you guys soon.

http://www3.sdstate.edu/Athletics/VarsitySports/Index.cfm
 
I attended a lot of Grizzly basletball games back in 1975-78. BB was a big thing. People would show up at 6PM for an 8PM start. Once when Idaho State came to play and the Big Sky title was on the line, students were lined up early to get in at 5PM. Those were the good old days of Grizzly b-ball. You'd get a sore but for 2 hours and have to listen to "the Grip" during the freshman game. The place was too loud to hear him during the varsity game.
I remember a few sold out games with 9200 fans in the place. Adams Fieldhouse was much louder than Gonzaga's Kennel.
I root for the Griz except when they play Gonzaga.
 
We actually had pretty good student attendance on Saturday against WSU. Last year during conference play we packed both student sections for a couple of the games and hopefully we'll be able to do it again (BTW we won both the games when it was packed).
 
I played at ISU from 1983-87 and the best fans that I ever played in front of were the fans at Montana University. I played all over the United States and your fans were the best I ever saw. I used to love to play in Missoula. I heard your student body doesn't go to the games because they were moved to a crappy part of the gym. That is to bad! I will always remember the battles there with Larry Krystowiak.
 
Although not a BBall fan, I have attented a few games at other universities, (over 10 years ago, mind you) and the STUDENTS are what made the atmosphere great at those BBall games. Although I follow the mens/womens BBall teams I don't keep up on the behind the scenes details, but it seems to me they rat holed the students possibly thinking they would get more "big shots" (people willing to shell out cash to the U) in and excited by giving them the best seats etc. All this at the expense of those who are a part of it all...the students. Sounds like it may be bitting them in the rear.
But like I said, I dont' really know the details, so my assesment is an uninformed one. But I think all of the FB fans know, that atmosphere goes a long way to getting more fans in the seats, and better recruits on the floor/field.
 
When UM remodeled the fieldhouse, they took out 1,500 seats. Most, around 1,000 seats were lost between the baskets. That 1,000 basically accounts for the number of students that were on the floor before the remodel. Plus, many season ticket holders had good seats between the baskets. After remodel they were not able to obtain the same kind of seats. Thus, many of those stopped coming to the games.

Another thing about the stats that Grizbeer posted, many of the attendance figures in the past two years are skewed due to free ticket give aways. They have had announced attendance for games of over 6,000 and there were no way more than 5,000 or maybe less. Last year I think there were two games where they gave away free tickets to try to pump up the attendance figure. Sometimes I think they did that because they were embarrassed the Lady Griz would have reached higher seasonal attendance then the men's. The Lady Griz would have a couple of times.
 
They only gave out free tickets to one game last season... the opener against Northern Iowa. We nearly sold out against MSU and on Monte Night (against Sac St).
 
89rabbit said:
Grizbeer said:
98-99 was the year of the remodel - all home games were held at Sentinel High School gym (which is larger and nicer than many BSC arena's).

Rabbit we defintally need rivalry games. The Idaho games of old were the best, but last years game didn't have that much excitement, and now Gonzaga seems to be getting there. But a rivalr doesn't mean playing each other every year, it is more personal for the players, coaches and fans. Not sure how we get that with SDSU?
Click to expand...

Like any rivalry it builds as we play each other and take games from one another. SDSU is a basketball school we could have some good match ups (Men are 11-0 and ranked #5 in NCAA D-II, Women are 7-0 and ranked #1, they are also the defending National Champions). We are ready for our move to D-I next year. Our fans also travel well, that always adds to a rivalry. Good luck with your season this year I am looking forward to playing you guys soon.

http://www3.sdstate.edu/Athletics/VarsitySports/Index.cfm
Click to expand...

Quick update,

SDSU is 16-0 ranked #3, but should move to #1 after the next D-II poll comes out as both #1 Southern Indiana and #2 Humboldt State lost this weekend!
 
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