Declining Attendance at the Final 4 Games

[4thgoal]

The Columbus Dispatch • Sunday March 29, 2015 6:38 AM

One thing that never changes at the boys basketball state tournament is the drama.

On Saturday in the Division IV final, New Madison Tri-Village won 48-46 when Colton Linkous made a 12-foot jump shot with 3.3 seconds to go and Harvest Prep’s David Dennis Jr. just missed on a half-court attempt as time expired.

But other things do change.

There were 9,794 in attendance, meaning there were almost as many empty seats in Value City Arena as there were bodies. Before 2012, the last time there was a crowd of less than 10,000 for a state final was sometime before the arena opened in 2000.

“It’s sad the way the attendance has dropped,” said Roger Barber, a longtime broadcaster who attended his first state tournament at the Fairgrounds Coliseum in 1952. “It’s hard to say why it has happened. I don’t think it’s the same since they closed the Holiday Inn across from St. John Arena. A lot of people enjoyed mingling there between games.”

It looks like we might as well get used to it. The crowds have been in an almost steady decline the past dozen years. In 2003, the 12 semifinals and finals games drew a combined 198,686, for an average of 16,557. The first 11 (of 12) sessions this year averaged 9,218. Only two crowds were above 10,000, and for the first time, two were below 8,000. As recently as 2009, none of the games fell below 10,000.

“I think there are a lot of variables involved in this,” Ohio High School Athletic Association commissioner Dan Ross said. “The NCAA is dealing with the same thing. People have a lot of opportunities for entertainment with their discretionary dollars, and I think they make choices based on that.”

Matchups matter, too. Ross noted that small towns usually bring more people than city or private schools, and this year’s event wasn’t kind that way. When reminded that big-screen televisions probably haven’t helped much either, Ross nodded, looked down and mimicked texting.

“A whole lot of it is societal and cultural,” he said.

That part of the equation is the saddest part, if only because this is such a terrific event. Considering that some fans find recruiting more important than the games, this event should be an attraction. In fact, the absence of this year’s Mr. Basketball, Luke Kennard of Franklin, doubtless hurt ticket sales. Kennard’s team lost to Dayton Dunbar in a Division II regional final.

But there would have to be a steady stream of Kennards to reverse what has been happening, and the trend could have serious implications. The OHSAA gets most of its revenue from the football and basketball championships, and the decline in attendance is putting a squeeze on the organization’s finances.

“We may be the only association in the country that doesn’t charge a membership fee or a participation fee,” Ross said. “We pay all of the catastrophic insurance for every athlete in Ohio. We reimburse the teams here for their hotels, meals and their travel, and then schools get bonuses on the tickets they sell back at the school.

“We may not be able to continue to do those things, and I hate that.”

Ross wants to avoid shifting the financial burden onto the schools. He is looking at how the state tournament is scheduled, perhaps combining sessions or moving from a Thursday-Friday-Saturday schedule to Friday-Saturday-Sunday.

“Maybe they don’t want to do that,” Ross said, “but there is going to be a turn on the other side. Catastrophic insurance is an $800,000 bill for us, and if I took the $800,000 back and said, ‘ OK, you guys pay for your own insurance,’ I don’t have to worry if anybody comes.”

He won’t do that, so he has to try to find a solution to the declining attendance.

“We returned $2.6 million to our schools last year with reimbursements and all that, and maybe we stop,” Ross said. “That’s why we’re not to the point where we’re on the cliff looking over. But we have to look at the way we do things. I can see the cliff up ahead.”

Bob Hunter is a sports columnist for The Dispatch.

[Raider6309]

Ohio had great attendance from 2000-2010 because Ohio was loaded with NBA talent. Started with the greatest player of his generation and the 1st high school athlete that every one in the country knew in high school. The top 5 attendance record years are 2001,2002,2003, 2004,and 2007.
That decade was just loaded with talent.
What are the averages before that decade compared to 2015? I would guess most years were around 9,000
Kentucky basketball also owns Ohio, so doesn't help an undefeated Kentucky was playing in Cleveland

[anderson2012]

Ohio had great attendance from 2000-2010 because Ohio was loaded with NBA talent. Started with the greatest player of his generation and the 1st high school athlete that every one in the country knew in high school. The top 5 attendance record years are 2001,2002,2003, 2004,and 2007.
That decade was just loaded with talent.
What are the averages before that decade compared to 2015? I would guess most years were around 9,000
Kentucky basketball also owns Ohio, so doesn't help an undefeated Kentucky was playing in Cleveland

I think the big factor here is that we knew from 2001-2004 there were quite a few kids that for certain were going straight to the NBA. When the NBA made kids wait a year after HS, that's when hype started to die. 2007 final four was in an era where ESPN really highlighted HS basketball recruiting for a few years, and happened to be when the finals featured Aaron Craft, Jon Diebler, OJ Mayo, Bill Walker, Nick Kellogg, plus the school that David Lighty went to (VASJ). I don't know if BJ Mullens was still at Harvest Prep then or not, but suffice to say that was talent coming up that we knew a LOT about. One thing to note about 2007: there was a lot of sensationalism around Diebler's HS records as well as North College Hill w/ Mayo & Walker. I'm willing to bet a dollar to a donut that there were a ton of non-Ohioans that showed up to those state finals in particular.

[trojandave]

I hear so much complaining from fans about private schools vs. public schools that I would have to think that the decline in attendance is partly because of that. I just believe that over time many fans have become fed up with private schools and the "advantages" that they have, which the public schools do not. The 2015 edition of the OHSAA state tournament had its share of outstanding D1 college athletes, just as it has every year. I would have really liked to have seen Luke Kennard of Franklin play. Public schools won 3 of the 4 state titles in Ohio in 2015.

I saw that the Kentucky Sweet 16 state championship game between Owensboro (champion) and Bowling Green only drew just over 11,000.......and Kentucky is renowned for its passion for basketball. One year (probably 10 years ago) I went to the Sweet 16 and the attendance for the opening sessions (4 games in one day) was 22,000. I watched the Indiana state championships on Fox this year, and I saw a lot of empty seats in the lower bowl. The Indiana 4A state title game, though, did draw a respectable 12,800. The Michigan 4A championship, won by Detroit Western, drew only 8,009. In 1990, at the Indiana state championship game, won by Bedford North Lawrence with Hoosier legend Damon Bailey, the crowd was 44,000 at the Hoosier Dome. Since then, like Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and Michigan have been suffering the same fate. The Illinois High School Association website didn't even list attendance at the championship games.......don't really know what conclusions one can draw from that. It seems odd, though, that no attendance figures were given.

I don't care who's playing at the state tournament.......I just want to see good basketball. Private or public, I don't care. My favorite division to watch, though, is D1, because in most years the best teams in the state are D1. There are exceptions, though, i.e., the Lebron James ASVM teams of the early 2000's, which won D3 and D2 state titles, teams that I think could have been the best in the state regardless of division.

[fortdawg]

I doubt if there was an influx of fans from the Southeast Regional---the final was played between two programs that recruit---and most fans don't consider either a "SouthEastern Team" as I think was showed by the attendance of the Regional final.

I wonder how many kids at the State Tourney played on the same Jr. High teams together whether it's a Private or Public school anymore. That has to hurt interest in my opinion.

[C-Bolt]

Live TV coverage might have something to do with it.Would never want them to completely eliminate the coverage, but a delay might be beneficial.Football has declined too around the same time frame.

[Raider6309]

I would guess OHSAA's TV deal is worth at least 3 million dollars per year. Even with TV, the football finals were up 21,000 people. That's a huge increase
"According to one TV station, the game between Athens and Toledo Central Catholic drew more coverage than the Columbus Blue Jackets and Cleveland Cavaliers did combined that same night."

Ohio per capita has the best turn out for people going to all sports in the country. 28% of the population goes to high school games. With TV, these games can be seen by millions of people instead of thousands of people

[athens78]

Move it back to St. Johns or some venue similar. With the smaller crowds it would at least pack a smaller venue. The current location is just to big.

[Raider6309]

2011 the total attendance was about the same as 2015. OHSAA made $794,000 in pure profit. Basketball and Football in the whole tournament both make 1.5 million dollars in pure profit. That's 3 million dollars plus the 3 million dollar TV deal/sponsorship. Both these sports make the state 6 million dollars. All the other sports are lucky to break even. OHSAA had a profit of 1.5 million dollars in 2012-2013. OHSAA had 4.5 million dollars in the bank. These numbers are from OHSAA financial report

My view is if you wanna cut cost, do it with the sports not named football and boys basketball.

[yabbadabbadoo]

Give the best seats to the fans of the teams. I know in the past I've heard people say that they are not going to pay that kind of money to sit behind the baskets where you can't see crap.

I know some will say that if it weren't for the politicians and school administrators the attendance would be worse, but they have never tried by turning the tide and giving them the seats the real fans get now. I would venture to guess those people would still come because to most its a day or two off work plus they still get to watch the games. They give the best seats to the teams fans for football, why not basketball?

They need to just try it once. Whatever seats don't sell on the sides then you filter all of those other people into them. Then you fill up the ends with the rest.

[C-Bolt]

"According to one TV station, the game between Athens and Toledo Central Catholic drew more coverage than the Columbus Blue Jackets and Cleveland Cavaliers did combined that same night."

They must be talking about TV ratings or media passes because I know for a fact the attendance wouldn't have been close to the Cavaliers game alone

[TRENCHFOOT]

There's someway way they can tell (coverage/tuning in/watching it on TV) about how many people are viewing an event on TV. They explained it one time how they can do it on a Nascar race I was watching last year. Yeah, the gate attendance at the Cavalier game would have been way bigger than the Athens game. Are we talking about actual attendance or percentage of people tuning in to the Athens game? That might have had more people in Ohio watching it on TV rather than the Cavalier game. (On TV/Coverage) No way though in gate attendance.

[Raider6309]

It's the TV rating. Means there were more people watching the Athens title game on TV than both pro sporting events combined that night. Im saying TV money will be way bigger than gate money. Ohsaa is getting around 3 million a year in TV and that will only grow

[TRENCHFOOT]

Yeah, I believe it. I don't know how they do it but they know how many people is watching certain events on TV. TV tech is better than it use to be. They get an automatic technical feedback somehow and can tell who's watching what and how many. That's how they get TV ratings. Today's technology is awesome.

[Spartan]

I love the state tournament. I'll go no matter what. The declining attendance made it easier and much cheaper to get great seats.

[C-Bolt]

Trench pretty sure they use the Nielsen ratings for that, they been around since 1950.They can't count every TV, they put black boxes in about 20,000 homes around the US for a sample and those are what monitors what people are watching and they just estimate from them how many people are watching.Its not an exact number but in the "ball park"

[TRENCHFOOT]

Trench pretty sure they use the Nielsen ratings for that, they been around since 1950.They can't count every TV, they put black boxes in about 20,000 homes around the US for a sample and those are what monitors what people are watching and they just estimate from them how many people are watching.Its not an exact number but in the "ball park"

Yep, that's it. Never said they could count every TV. I said they know about how many was watching but I couldn't remember the name the nascar announcer said last year and couldn't remember how it was done. They put 5000 of those black boxes in a geographical area's per so many people and they go off of that. Don't know how many are in the whole US. But it's getting better, TV cable company's/direct TV/dish Network have another way they can tell as well but it's not 100% because people are always flipping channels. But sport lovers in a big event usually stay put till it's over. Yep, it's a ball park figure but close. Had trouble with my cable the other day, called the cable company and it's wild how they can control my digital cable box from their head quarters. She shut the power off on her own to it and did a bunch of stuff and asking me a bunch of questions. Channel numbers/line blips flying by on it's number face when she was running the test. I told her I was watching the history channel when the cable messed up. She said she knew and even put me back on that channel when she was done helping me. They can do many things through the cable lines now. No need for a door visit from a cable man for every little problem anymore, unless a line is down etc. Thank god, because this was around 7:00 pm when mine messed up. Years ago I would of had to wait a day or two for a cable man appointment from the little local office. Just wonder if that Direct TV is any good? The prices look way cheaper than Time Warner, even with internet.

[ONE OF A KIND]

Yea, I noticed Ross never mentioned the millions they make from the TV deals. Nor did he mention any cut-backs from the hundreds of thousands, probably millions, they pay in salaries, travel expenses and other bennies for the OHSAA employees. Nor the lavish hospitality rooms set up for OHSAA employees at the football and basketball tournaments. No, the only mention of cut-backs was what the participating schools would receive. Of course if we have the private schools threaten to leave the OHSAA and start their own association if they do make those cut-backs to the schools I am sure they will quickly find an alternative. That is what happened when serious talks of having separate public and private tournaments started.