here's baseball: Total Attendance in Alex Box Stadium (1984-2009) Year Dates Attendance Average 1984 24 22,021 918 1985 25 40,746 1,630 1986 34 81,075 2,385 1987 27 46,084 1,707 1988 27 46,831 1,734 1989 33 65,781 1,993 1990 30 78,616 2,621 1991 37 113,832 3,077 1992 34 114,937 3,381 1993 39 137,306 3,521 1994 33 143,595 4,351 1995 36 148,995 4,139 1996 39 226,805 5,816 1997 39 252,864 6,484 1998 35 232,597 6,645 1999 38 271,888 7,154 2000 39 286,874 7,355 2001 37 276,622 7,476 2002 36 271,179 7,532 2003 39 291,676 7,478 2004 36 284,328 7,898 2005 36 270,300 7,508 2006 37 270,341 7,306 2007 35 256,537 7,329 2008 42 318,798 7,590 2009* 42 403,056 9,596 Totals 909 4,953,684 5,450 couldn't find the numbers on basketball but this nola.com says the season ticket holders for basketball are 6900. LSU athletic director Joe Alleva wants to increase basketball attendance | LSU Beat - NOLA.com baseball, i cant find anything on the number of season ticket holders there are, sorry man. If you lump the last 20 years together than yes John, basketball is more popular than baseball, but we are talking about right now.
Lots of geeks* around here. Someone will come up with it. Thanks for trying. *And I mean that in the nicest way.
wrong on that one. baseball is #1 at Barbe in Lake Charles. and the football program is a pretty good one too.
Don't know for sure, but the baseball team is going to be televised for 16 games, does the basketball team top that?
basketball attendance G-total avg yr 15-133611 8907 09-10 6th SEC W 21-217834 10373 1st SEC 15-128469 8565 4th SEC W 18-180038 10002 6th SEC W 16-151499 9469 1st SEC 15-141139 9409 1st (t) SEC W thats as far back as i could find quickly. obviously this is paid home att.
I disagree with you on the first two points and agree with on the last one (although I'd be happy with a 2 or 3 year rule like baseball). Look, I think folks look at this season and think doom and gloom and "woe is LSU, will we ever be good?". I think people forget how good it was in the 80's. Then starting in the 90's, honestly, the state of our coaching was just difficult to deal with. Daddy Dale, as much as I love him, had started to lose is coaching touch, and Brady had his faults. If we focus on the recent, I would disagree that our best players will ALWAYS leave for the likes of Alabama, Tennessee, etc. While basketball recruiting for LSU has always been less "pervasive" for the home state school than LSU football recruiting, I'd argue that our top talent always considers LSU, but until Trent Johnson there hasn't been a legitimate top-notch coach to put LSU on some of the same tiers as other southern school coaches or ACC coaches. Let's be real, when Daddy Dale was at his prime, he could out recruit Miss St, Mississippi, Texas, Alabama for players easily. In the SEC back then, it was really either LSU or Kentucky, and honestly sort of Auburn and GA after that. In the late 90's early 2000's you saw other SEC schools really put in the $$ into their hoops programs, hire new coaches, and all of the sudden if you were considering SEC schools, you'd have to look at the success of Alabama, Miss St, Vanderbilt, Tennessee, Florida, as options. Then you add Rick Barnes at Texas and folks like Scott Drew at Baylor, now Butch Pierre at Oklahoma St, and you see the reality is kids from LA have nearby options for hoops, far more than they did before. If you're a Brady hater, you could argue that Brady didn't build enough of a nationally respected, legitimate program, or if you defend Brady, you could say that the landscape in the south for hoops changed and he won despite it. But, regardless of that, it was clear that Brady could not consistently recruit deep classes (his only deep class was the Brandon Bass class (that clearly had misses and defections due to his coaching) and the Glen Davis/Temple/Tas'/Thomas couple of years), and hence, could not consistently win. It wasn't just his "one and done" recruiting philosophy, it was just he didn't recruit enough good players period. And, I would agree with others, consistent winning breeds continual recruiting and better attendance, or another way to look at it is consistent recruiting breeds consistent winning which breeds consistent attendance. That said, I don't think that LSU was ever that far off from turning things around. The tradition IS there and resources are there. We just needed a head man, with a clear vision to build a program, and a couple of years of optimism to get things on the right track. If you just look at the most recent few years of LA recruiting, kids are taking LSU seriously again, and you aren't seeing LA kids simply dismissing LSU because of the coaching. You can see that in Ludwig, Derenbecker, John Isaac. And, you can see the IN-BOUND talent to LSU again, in Stringer/Courtney (MS), Turner (AL). Now, you can add KC Ross-Miller (top 15 kid in TX, committed to LSU). In truth, LA hasn't produced NBA lottery talent since Greg Monroe and DJ Augustin, and it's likely those kids would have taken LSU more seriously had Trent been recruiting them. I think LSU is good now for 2 solid years of developmental growth, then another pivotal year of recruiting will be 2012. With CTJ we are headed in the right direction and yes, we can be very good again. Just like we have been in the past. :thumb::geauxtige:bball::geauxtige
Ok, as far as the "who's more popular" debate, I'd say that given the dynamic of "height" of Dale Brown era in the late 70s-early 90's, transitioning to the Skip Bertman era has led to some of why folks debating this on the thread are probably baseball centric. Again, folks have to have a long term perspective. Obviously, LSU's national championships in football and baseball have led to those sports "dominating" popularity in the 2000's, and having the basketball program in relatively "down" state, being sandwiched between two more "successful" sports getting more fan eyeballs and $s, makes it hard to make the case for hoops. But, you can do the math. First from a pure number of tickets perspective, remember that basketball only has about half of the home tickets than baseball (about 15-18 on average), so if your popularity is based upon tickets sold, then basketball is going to lose, with the recent expansion of the Box. For sake of discussion though, I think folks should look at the key years in hoops history (I won't give every year but key years)--here are the numbers: 1980-81, Games: 15, total attendance: 205,622, Average: 13,708. 1981-82, 13, 171,305, 13,177 From 1979-82, you have really the "glory" years of LSU basketball with Rudy Macklin and the 1981 final four team. In that four year span from 78-79 to '81-82, LSU finished first in the SEC twice, second and fifth. In the 1982- to about 1987, which were decent years for Brown, although truthfully years where LSU was 1st to 6th in the SEC in rank, the average attendance was between 12,000 and 13,000. Coincidentally, in the 80's, the lowest average was the 86'-87 year, where the tigers finished 6th in the SEC, but then made the surprising run in the tourney. That year their attendance was an average low of 10,324 per game. BUT, the run in the tourney led to a spike the next few years: 1987-88, 15, 174,414, 11,628 1988-89, 16, 192,016, 12,001 1989-90, 18, 246,257, 13,681 Now, coincidentally, guess what, these were the beginnings of the Chris Jackson Shaq' years. In' 90-92, the average PMAC attendance exceeded 13,000 per game, and the Tigers finished first in the SEC once, and second twice. In the 1993-to 1999 you saw the steady decline of the Brown era, and average attendance gradually eroded, from about 11,000 per game all the way down to a low of 7,142 per game in the 1997-98 season, which was Brady's first season. Interestingly, Brady's all-time high average attendance year was 1999-2000 (the Sweet 16 and SEC championship year with Stromile Swift), with an average of 10,549 over 16 games (it was also, interestingly, early in Brady's career before folks knew him). Over 2001 to 2005, Brady hovered between 8,100 and 9,400 average, and he wouldn't break the 10,000 average again until the 2006-7 SEC Championship/Final Four year (at exactly, 10,002 per game). Immediately thereafter, with Tyrus going pro and Darrell Mitchell graduating, Glen Big Baby Davis and Brady could only muster 8,565 per game. Now, in 2008-9, Trent Johnson's first year, the numbers were: 21 games, 217,834, and 10,373 per game, for a SEC Championship team. Now, this may not solve the baseball vs. basketball debate completely, but clearly there are more people given the number of games watching baseball. You have to look at the ticket prices (I'd gather that basketball prices on average are higher, so revenue is probably more equivalent). Also, to someone's earlier question, if you count all of the times LSU has been on TV this year (including things like the SEC Network), it's 23. The ESPN basketball contract makes basketball more lucrative, as does likely NCAA tournament payouts. So overall, based upon TV money and tourney money, I wouldn't be surprised if basketball isn't still the more important franchise. What do I take from all of this? Clearly LSU attendance is not where it needs to be. At most, we should expect averages in the 13,000 range, but I'd argue that in order to do that, we need (1) consistent winning and (2) star power. Trent showed that in his first year he could average well, but the question will be what happens over this year and next. Will the prospect of a top 10 recruiting class allow for a rebound next year above the 10,000 range? Maybe not. But, perhaps by 2011-12, it will if LSU starts to win and fans identify with stars on the team. The key for Trent is how to sway that 2,000-3,000 additional hoops fans per game to make it out. And, I'd also argue that basketball and baseball will not completely cannibalize each others' fans. Basketball fans will come back out when there's excitement in the air, and you need a few back to back good seasons to keep that building back up. As we've seen though, it only takes a couple of seasons to turn it around quickly. Again, with the 2010-11 recruiting class, you've got the start of something special. To truly get the magic back, Trent will have to eventually sign a top player that truly captures the imagination of the fans (like the CJ-Shaq era) or have to develop a team that can truly sustain upper echelon SEC success (like the 1979-1982 Macklin teams). It may be that he'll see that as this 2010 class matures. Let's hope! :thumb:
im not so sure about this. this was the point of starting the thread, which most seem to have ignored. does lsu really have the resources given the $$$ stats posted? i was surprised by the low revenue compared to other below avg sec programs. $$$ is probably the most important factor in having a successful program and is an indicator of fan dedication. its good to know the history of lsu and college bball but things have changed so much since dale's success that its barely relevant.
