Why can’t we draw more fans

[Jim Vanderhoof]

Until the early 2000’s basketball was king at Utah. I know we had some bad coaching hires and teams that were mediocre at best. That would account for a drop in attendance but there is more to it.

1. Football is now king. Over lapping seasons with a perennial bowl game.
2. Blue hair crowd that got too old to fight the cold and strange game times. (Me)
3.Lack of student support which is the most disturbing for me.
4. Pick and roll (not ball movement). Tall athletic players that are hard to score on. Few fast breaks. Not as fun to watch.
5. Lack of rivalrys in pac 12. The constant transfers and new players each year not developing chemistry and watching freshman grow and get better each year.
6. Every game televised.

I guess that answered my own question. I never missed a game for 30 years but haven’t been to more than a dozen games since 2005.

[CityCreekUte]

College basketball as a sport has gotten far less interesting.

Largely I think the style of play brought on by the age of 1 and done (pick & roll + catch and shoot) has really ruined the game.

[Tony (admin)]

I think the number of games is problematic. It’s quite a time commitment to attend so many home games. And if one makes that commitment and has a bad experience (team loses, concessions bad, hard to park etc), it doesn’t help.

[ProudUte]

I believe the constant transfers made it most difficult for me. It is hard when the team is 75% different every year. This was before the portal Coach K had a hard time keeping his best players. I am honestly just not that interested in college basketball anymore.

I admit that the women’s team is fun to watch.

[GameForAnyFuss]

I think it comes down to a single thing: Utah fans love winners. Track attendance throughout the modern history of football and basketball and it’s no big mystery.

I don’t buy the whole “NCAA/NIL/transfer portal/one-and-done is ruining the game” excuse. Those same things are happening in football and it’s not affecting attendance.

As a fan who goes to every single game (except a couple) each year, I do wish more people would come out. But at the same time, low attendance has its perks. I pay almost nothing for tickets, I can sit anywhere I want, and I’m home 30 minutes after I stand up out of my seat.

[Tony (admin)]

Yes that has been a perk for many years. No lines. No traffic. My kid can run around and sit wherever he wants.

[Jim Vanderhoof]

I’m hoping a move to the big twelve. Better basketball conference and new teams to watch will help.

I miss those sold out down to the last possession games. Van Horn, Miller, Ticky Burden, Newlin and so many more. The great teams that played together as a team instead of individuals.

Thanks city creek for your comments. Old school basketball was more fun to watch. I don’t want to be the old guy that doesn’t appreciate the evolution of basketball. I’ve lost interest.

[Staples]

That’s really the catch-22 of the whole thing. Fans stay away because they only want to support a “winner”, yet recruiting invariably has to suffer when you bring a recruit in for a visit and there’s 2000 fans in the arena. Say what you will about BYU, but they have a great gameday environment down there in Provo, in a close recruiting battle I could see how a kid would want to play in that atmosphere instead of the Huntsman.

[Utah]

1 – Utah basketball sucks. It’s not fun to watch. Well…actually, that is probably reasons 1-5. Most casual fans, like myself, tune in to one or two games early every year…and whether you like it or not, usually it’s the BYU game. And when we lose…eh. I have better things to do with my time.

2 – The PAC-12 sucks. Why should I watch a bad Utah team play a bad Stanford team on a Saturday night? There is no reason to watch.

3 – College basketball sucks in general. At the very least, they should make the shot clock by 24 seconds. I don’t want to watch kids toss a ball around the perimeter for 20 secs on every possession.

4 – I think that’s it for me.

[Ute2]

This may sound silly but the stands looked fuller than I thought they would for game 1 against a nobody. Last year was friends and family only. This year was a little more than that. So I was actually a little bit encouraged.

Preseason attendance is always garbage unless the game moves the needle.

Conference is when bball attendance heats up and that’s been the case for a long while.

[Staples]

As a season ticket holder who goes to every single game, I don’t really have a good answer for why more don’t show up. If you’re looking for an excuse to not attend a game, I guess it’s pretty easy to find one. Parking isn’t great, though between Trax and the shuttle service they started last year, it’s not too bad getting to the game. Concessions are meh at best, that’s something I wish they would improve on, but not holding my breath. The University seems to be making some efforts with the students with incentives/contests for attending games (including all the in-state games), but it’s hard to pinpoint why the MUSS is so lacking in basketball. I’m not expecting 7,000 strong, but it should be more than 50. At the same time, the U is doing themselves no favors in my opinion by doing away with Runnin’ Utes night. They have a prime opportunity with how good the women’s team is to do a combined night with the men and women’s teams, introduce the teams, have a 3 point contest, a skills competition, and then have each team play a short scrimmage. Provide free drinks and popcorn, make it a family friendly event that’s not too long. Get people excited. End of the day, I’m not sure the crowds will ever return like they once did. If you can’t get people there for a game against the #4 team in country in Arizona last year (check the highlights, there were a ton of empty seats for that upset victory,) not sure when you ever will.

[//r00t4Utes]

I know for me, I do watch every game on TV, so that is prolly a part of it, that and as others have said the parking, specifically where. I get that the more you go the more familiar it would be but it would stress me out taking my kids, I get that sounds stupid. The walking part I didn’t mind, just the knowing where the parking was.

As others have said that is supposed to be better with the shuttle service now I guess.

[RedRocks]

I know some fans seem to believe that you need to go all out in your support of the team, no matter what.

However, there are some people (like me) that view sports as entertainment. If it is not entertaining, I will not watch.

I think college football is fun. Is it the best football you will ever see? No. Are NFL players better? Sure.
However, I find college football to be entertaining, so I watch. Even if Utah is not ‘winning’, I watch.

College basketball, on the other hand, is generally not entertaining. So, I don’t watch.

It is as simple as that for me and, likely, thousands of others.

[RoboUte]

I think it’s too much of a revolving door roster wise. People like to be attached to names, not just brands. On top of that we can’t seem to sustain success. But I’m biased. I simply don’t find college basketball interesting.

[UtesRule]

Number 1 reason for me is the NCAA tournament draught since 2016…get to the tourney consistently / won consistently and the fans will come back.

Last year was a good first step…hopefully this year they take that next big step.

Go Utes!!

[Ute2]

Another thing I’ve thought is that football is now above the need for instate rivalries. We don’t need to play byu in football. I love that game and want to play it but Utah football will still be king without it.

Bball needs the instate stuff to drum up intrigue and interest. It draws attention gets eye balls and creates the feels. I think it is a disservice to the program not to play Weber and Usu. even suu and Uvu would provide some much needed intrigue that eastern Washington just doesn’t get done. Utah bball is not above it and needs it.

[voxnihili]

Luckily, then, Utah is playing both SUU and UVU next month.

I agree, though, I want more Weber.

[Ute2]

Oh haha…. Whoops.

More were Weber and more Aggies. That’ll get some more butts in the seats!

[bopahull]

I think what has really killed college ball is all of the top quality players are gone after a year. The top schools rent these men for a year and they are gone. If a player stays in school it’s probably because he isn’t good enough for the next level.
Players that develop over the years are seldom even given a chance at the next level.
If you’re not a blue blood school the chances of building a great team like Utah used to do are extremely low at best. The portal makes it even worse if you’re struggling to get your head above water like our Utes. It makes it difficult to retain a really good player if a much better team/program wants to grab them.
I agree that attendance is hurt by fielding poor to mediocre teams like Utah has done for the last couple of decades. I don’t know any great ways to turn it around. I think even if the Utes start winning most of their games it will take several years to rebuild the fanbase.

[DrahtUte]

My answer would be that we just haven’t had “that” player who could draw a crowd in a long long time.

I loved watching Andre Miller back in the day. Then there was a good list of other players I loved to watch over the next several years. After maybe Delon Wright or Jacob Poetl, there just wasn’t anyone that I loved to watch.

I will admit though that I watched yesterday’s game and Gabe Madsen’s shot is pretty enough to maybe draw me in this season. I love watching quick shooters with a smooth release that know how to use screens. It’s satisfying. I might have to go to a game to see it in person.

[Jim Vanderhoof]

All of the above is sad but true. We have everything in place to be a great program. Great players want to be on national tv and big crowds. We have neither. The Jazz has also hurt. 41 home games with the best players in the world vs 18-20 year old entitled kids. Coaches have to walk on egg shells so they don’t hurt feelings or they transfer. I miss the old days!!

[Kirk Herbstreet]

I grew up when Majerus was coach. I bled basketball. Played it for hours a day. Watched every Jazz game that was on TV and was lucky enough to attend 10 – 15 games a year. When I wasn’t there or the game wasn’t on TV, I listened to the radio broadcast. But oddly enough, even then I was still a Utah football over Utah basketball fan. We were okay at Football in the 90s. We were great at basketball. Still, I may have caught 10 hoops games on TV or in person. And that was with Josh Grant, Van Horn and Andre Miller at one point or another. Football is just so much easier to follow. But I did love those WAC matchups on ESPN at 10 PM on Monday nights. Gave me a reason to stay up late in grade school.

As an aside, I tried watching on TV a few years ago and I was amazed at how bad the officiating was. It has probably been 5 years since I watched any Utah Basketball as a result of what I saw from the zebras.

[utefansince79]

Back in my student days, when we’d watch many football games with a mostly empty student section, then hoops season would start with loud students taking most of 6 sections, never would have thought we would have the MUSS filling the student area at most football games and under 100 students at most hoops games.

[GameForAnyFuss]

Looking at it from a pure sporting perspective (i.e. setting aside fandom), for the life of me I can’t figure out why people like football more than basketball. Don’t get me wrong – I watch some football. But football is so much worse than basketball from the standpoint of straight up entertainment.

A game takes 4 hours and there’s only something like 12 minutes of actual action. 45 seconds between each play. Endless replays. Every other play gets reviewed. Every time there’s a stoppage in play there’s a 4 minute commercial. Confusing rules are ruining the game. Changing rules are ruining the game.

I watch every Utah football game and I always will, but as a sport, it is barely tolerable. Give me a basketball game any day over the sheer boredom that is 95% of every football game.

Thanks in advance for your downvotes.

[Tony (admin)]

To me football is far more interesting than bball. It’s a chess game. Tons of strategy. Yeah baskeball has strategy too, but it pales in comparison. It’s one team vs another team, but also 11 individual players against 11 other players. There are so many more layers to football that it is far deeper and more interesting to me.