- October 5th, 2019, 10:14 am
#585535
Continuing the discussion we were having in the football forum here where it belongs:
Some have taken exception to my use of the term "revisionist history" when folks imply that huge crowds were ever the norm at the Vines Center. I took about 15 minutes to pull up the box scores from home games during the 1996-97 season, which was easily the highest attended year we have ever had. For what it's worth, I attended every home game that year.
Average attendance for 12 regular season games: 4,750. That is almost exactly half capacity. This includes the 9000 at the VT game, where easily half the crowd were Hokie fans, and it barely seemed like a home game.
Number of games over 6000 (which IMHO is the critical mass for a truly great game atmosphere in that arena): 4. In addition to the VT game, this included the opener against FIU and games against conference rivals Winthrop and Radford.
Number of games with more than 6000 empty seats: Also 4.
Anyone who knows anything about Liberty's history with attendance figures knows that if these numbers are skewed in any way, it is certainly NOT to the low side.
Moving forward to the present. In the middle of our most successful season ever last year, we played possibly the most anticipated home game we have ever had against Lipscomb. Both teams undefeated in conference and with first place on the line.
Attendance 5053. A lot of people didn't think there were that many there.
The game atmosphere was good, but nothing spectacular. We lost by 20 (and it wasn't really that close). Not saying the outcome would have been different, but you will have a tough time convincing me that it would not have been a harder environment to play in for the Bisons with 4500 or so crammed into every seat and cranny of the new arena.
2 characteristics of great basketball venues: Hard to get a seat and really hard for opponents to come out with a win. This is what we are going for, with Ritchie McKay leading the way