The above picture is from the Alabama/Auburn women's basketball game from 2006. But, I wouldn't blame you if you mistakenly thought it was a picture from an Auburn men's basketball game recently. Some SEC schools struggle to fill their seats year in and year out, except when the Kentucky Wildcats come to town. Then, the entire community seems to want to have a ticket and cram into the arena like sardines. UK has played 6 road games in the SEC so far this season and I looked at the average home attendance in conference play of those 6 teams and then compared it to the attendance for the Kentucky game. Here are my findings:Auburn
- Average attendance in their 6 SEC home games excluding Kentucky: 7,452.2 fans
- Attendance vs. Kentucky: 11,669 fans (largest home crowd so far this season)
- 56.6% increase from average attendance
Florida
- Average attendance in their 6 SEC home games excluding Kentucky: 11,217.4 fans
- Attendance vs. Kentucky: 12,618 fans (largest home crowd so far this season)
- 12.5% increase from average attendance
Louisiana State
- Average attendance in their 6 SEC home games excluding Kentucky: 9,400 fans
- Attendance vs. Kentucky: 13,083 fans (largest home crowd so far this season)
- 39.2% increase from average attendance
Mississippi State
- Average attendance in their 6 SEC home games excluding Kentucky: 8,304.6 fans
- Attendance vs. Kentucky: 10,778 fans (largest home crowd so far this season)
- 29.9% increase from average attendance
South Carolina
- Average attendance in their 6 SEC home games excluding Kentucky: 13,535.6 fans
- Attendance vs. Kentucky: 18,000 fans (largest home crowd so far this season)
- 33% increase from average attendance
Vanderbilt
- Average attendance in their 6 SEC home games excluding Kentucky: 14,118.2 fans
- Attendance vs. Kentucky: 14,316 fans (tied for largest home crowd so far this season)
- 1.4% increase from average attendance
3 comments:
Good findings. I suspected this was the case. How many times have you seen a game stat (FG%, 3's made, player's scoring avg) for a UK opponent flash across the bottom of the screen during a game with an asterisk indicating "career best" or "new school record"? It happens almost every game.
A statistic that might have conditioned some of your smaller Kentucky affects is the capacity of the arenas. It is highly likely the attendance balloons at Vanderbilt and Florida in particular and everywhere in general are completely limited only by the number of seats and the town fire marshalls.
If KY left the SEC, the SEC would fall apart.
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