The University of Hawaii men’s basketball game Saturday was notable for more than just the lei-bedecked senior night.
The announced season-high turnstile count of 5,065 for Cal State Northridge also marked the closest the Rainbow Warriors have come to even half-filling the 10,300-seat Stan Sheriff Center this year.
The arena hasn’t gotten any bigger; the crowds have just been smaller lately. As the grinding difficulty in getting above the 5,000-turnstile count hump attests.
When the final audited numbers are in, the turnstile average this season could be the smallest in nearly a decade.
This should be food for thought as the ’Bows both plot next season’s nonconference schedule and hit the road for recruiting.
Not since then-head coach Bob Nash’s final season, the 10-20 finish of 2009-10, drew an average of just 2,873 per game have we seen numbers expected to approximate an average of 3,302 at home based upon announced figures to date. Which could be about 300 per game below last season and even below the 3,498 average of the turbulent 14-16 season of 2016-17.
Since the 2009-10 bottoming out, crowds of 5,000-plus have usually been in multiples, with a streak of at least five per season at one juncture. Until Riley Wallace’s final season (2006-07) as head coach, UH averaged more than 4,500 per game for five consecutive seasons, topping out at 5,068 per game in the 2001-02 season.
The ’Bows haven’t averaged 4,500 or more over a season since.
Of course, athletic directors and coaches elsewhere in the nine-member Big West Conference would give their courtesy cars and fire up the band to pull in what the ’Bows draw on even an average night in these austere times.
But, then, most of them play in cramped gyms reminiscent of junior college facilities rather than true collegiate arenas. Many have scant followings and little media interest. And their schools aren’t required to shell out travel subsidies to visiting conference opponents. The ’Bows are.
In decent years UH men’s basketball can bring in more than $1 million in ticket revenue, no small contribution to lessening the department’s red ink and helping to grow the program.
Which is why the ’Bows need to find ways to do better at enticing patrons through the turnstiles than they have lately. Winning will surely help, which means being a true championship contender, not perpetually hovering around .500 in the regular-season standings.
Fans will come out in numbers, as we have seen, when the ’Bows are exciting and put together significant winning streaks. But other than the run to their lone championship in the 28-6 season of 2015-16, that has been a rarity. Why that is seems hard to fathom in the Big West.
The other component is a nonconference home schedule that needs some sprucing up — one that has been larded too often with rent-a-foe teams while doubling up on Division II opponents.
Should anybody be surprised that games against Alabama A&M, Mississippi Valley State, Prairie View and North Dakota in these past two seasons didn’t dent the 3,000 mark? Playing little brother UH Hilo is one thing, but the other D-IIs on the schedules, Adams State and Humboldt State, are another, barely eliciting yawns.
Once upon a time the Sheriff Center buzzed on a regular basis. It can — and should — again.
TURNSTILE COUNT
(UH avg. home game attendance)
SEASON AVG.
2018-‘19 3,302*
2017-‘18 3,599
2016-‘17 3,498
2015-‘16 4,417
2014-‘15 4,055
2013-‘14 4,208
2012-‘13 3,971
2011-‘12 3,691
2010-‘11 3,958
2009-‘10 2,873
2008-‘09 3,198
2007-‘08 3,110
2006-‘07 3,438
2005-‘06 4,893
2004-‘05 4,777
2003-‘04 4,502
2002-‘03 4,769
2001-‘02 5,068
* = Unaudited.
Source: UH.
Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.
