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Boy's State Tournament Attendance 2017


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#1 paynepanthers

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Posted 23 March 2017 - 10:30 PM

Game 1- 8,837
Game 2- 8,556
Game 3- 8,135
Game 4- 8,457
Game 5- 9,485
Game 6- 9,396
Game 7- 11,091
Game 8- 11,009
Game 9- 11,928
Game 10- 8,302
Game 11- 8,712
Game 12- 11,750
Total- 115,658

Edited by paynepanthers, 25 March 2017 - 10:53 PM.



#2 Outspoken

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Posted 24 March 2017 - 06:56 AM

Attendance at the Tournament is definitely dying. Didn't break 9,000 yesterday, and I'm not sure they will today. What has happened? Have that many die hard hoops fans passed away? Is it that the quality of ball isn't as good? Tickets too expensive? I remember when going to State was the thing to do, and a ticket to St John Arena wasn't always easy to get

#3 Hagen

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Posted 24 March 2017 - 08:01 AM

View PostOutspoken, on 24 March 2017 - 06:56 AM, said:

Attendance at the Tournament is definitely dying. Didn't break 9,000 yesterday, and I'm not sure they will today. What has happened? Have that many die hard hoops fans passed away? Is it that the quality of ball isn't as good? Tickets too expensive? I remember when going to State was the thing to do, and a ticket to St John Arena wasn't always easy to get
At the end of the day, it's still a form of entertainment & it's not as dominant of a product as it use to be compared to other options for the consumer. Some include:
1. Private schools who rely on recruiting for high school sports generally don't have the following public schools have. Fans don't care as much about Jimmy, who showed up freshman year from an hour away, as they do about to Johnny, who's parents/grandparents went there. There are exceptions, but we know the schools that are included here.
2. TV allows for older/further away fans to watch the games, rather than travel more than travel 1-2 hours away for 60 minutes of basketball, especially if it's still cold out.
3. More entertainment options, especially with NCAA Tournament being the same weekends. Having 100+ TV channels vs 10 makes a difference. Many would prefer to watch HGTV or HBO, rather than going to watch a basketball game.
4. Kids don't care about sports as much as they use to because they have other entertainment options and/or are working year-round jobs.
5. People move more once out of high school/college to get jobs wherever they need to & don't have "the family business" to entice them to stick around, thus losing that connection with their high schools.

Edited by Hagen, 24 March 2017 - 08:04 AM.


#4 Hagen

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Posted 24 March 2017 - 08:11 AM

Game 1: 8837 — (D2) Wauseon vs Cbus Eastmoor Acad.
Game 2: 8556 — (D2) Akron SVSM v Trotwood-Madison
Game 3: 8135 — (D4) Delphos St. John's v Clev. Lutheran East
Game 4: 8457 — (D4) Cbus Wellington v Lima Perry

For those who went Thursday, what were the "fan splits" for these games? How did the student sections of each team look? Any a bit one-sided?

Edited by Hagen, 24 March 2017 - 08:11 AM.


#5 Spartan87

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Posted 24 March 2017 - 12:18 PM

Hagen,

Fan splits were as you imagined..Perry brought most of Lima, saw every Lima school represented except Temple. Jays brought all of Western Allen county. Wauseon, whole town...etc. Small privates were just that...
I am a Spartan, as was my father before me.

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#6 Rocketman

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Posted 24 March 2017 - 06:03 PM

With the lowest attendance so far being the LE/DSJ game, it would appear that having 2 privates playing each other is a disaster for attendance......it was good that the Jeffcat fans followed the Jays down or it might have been much less... :coffee:

My thoughts on the overall attendance?.............the utter disregard that the OHSAA schmucks have for "average joe"........it started about 15 years ago,.......you can figure the rest of it out
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#7 Enjoy watching sports

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Posted 24 March 2017 - 08:54 PM

Was there for the 1st 4 games. Thank God Lutheran East brought 25 students and 50 fans to bring that total up.

#8 Rocketman

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Posted 25 March 2017 - 01:25 PM

I'm listening to the D4 state final right now via the internet. Are there 5000 people in the stands ?
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#9 Maltese Falcon

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Posted 25 March 2017 - 07:28 PM

state tournament attendance reflects overall attendance at high school basketball during the season, and the clientele that attends the state tournament is similar to what you will find at an HS boys game in Ohio throughout the season. Mainly older folks who grew up watching HS basketball in their hometowns and don't partake in the myriad of other entertainment options that present themselves to younger/ middle-aged people. Well, those older people that attend(ed) every year are slowly dying off or aren't capable of going. That and coaches/ AD's that get tickets comped to them by their school. Outside of some diehards (mostly found in NW Ohio) I think a lot of the people aged 25-50 are just lazy and like to sit at home on the weekend.

Ticket prices shouldn't be a factor, they are $12, probably in line with the rate of inflation over the past 15 years or so. Maybe a tad overpriced, $10 would be reasonable, though. Most schools charge $6 during the season which hasn't changed in years and is a great deal compared to a night out at the movies, dinner, straight lining heroin or whatever people who don't go to ballgames do.

The Public/ private debate is a tired one that has never been solved. Maybe the new competitive balance measures by the OHSAA will address this.

I think the fact the finals are on TV is a negligible factor. Most people who don't care enough to make an effort to go to games live won't tune in on TV, either, when there are so many other--mostly crappy-- options for people to watch like Bar Rescue or the dreck that FoxNews feeds it's viewers or whatever other stupid shows are on TV that afternoon/ evening.

Level of play- Skill level has declined over the years, again ask any old person who has attended the state tournament over the years, they will happily tell you. But even if you have a big name player/ great team I still don't think that is enough to bump attendance much.

Anyway, I went this year, will go next year and as long as my health allows. Low attendance numbers shouldn't take away from the fun and camaraderie that comes with attending this event yearly. If nothing else, low attendance numbers= lower ticket prices. Heck, I went to 6 games this weekend and spent a grand total of $64 on tickets.

#10 KarCuke

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Posted 25 March 2017 - 10:08 PM

Another reason for low attendance: There was a time when many high school principals and school superintendents and their wives from a majority of schools attended the boys state tournament. For the most part, they were former coaches in some sport and attended for a variety of reasons. There are more and more principals and superintendents that were never involved in coaching and don't have the interest in attending. Also, with more sports, there are more state tournaments. Schools can no longer afford to send their coaching staffs to their respective state tournaments - two or three nights lodging, tickets, travel expenses, meals, substitute teachers - all very expensive.

#11 rallyinthe9th

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Posted 26 March 2017 - 08:29 AM

I had a good time at the state tournament. We try to go every year and especially like supporting it when the NWOAL teams make it. I don't see attendance going back to 13-15 k without huge names. I got home and checked facebook and young basketball families were playing this weekend. A lot of these families are potential customers if they don't have that tournament. I don't know how you change it, but it would be nice if this wasn't a weekend for tournaments.

Also, free throws were a huge problem this weekend. I understand there has to be extra pressure, but it was amazing how much they affected the game. Wauseon could have been right there with a good free throw shooting game. They left a lot of points on the table and you just can't do that and win a state title. I would guess all 4 final games averaged around 50 percent from the line.

Skill level may indeed be down. I don't want to come across as a crazy old guy, but it seems like just about every game was lower scoring.

I still had a great weekend. It was fun seeing Wauseon win Thursday and realize they could compete at the highest level. I was worried they would get blown out. I am not really sure how Archbold made it down there, but it was still a great run for a young team. I think they will have a chance to get back next season with all the kids they have returning. Banner year for the league.

#12 waterloowonder

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Posted 26 March 2017 - 09:07 AM

Just got back from the annual Private School Festival. I enjoy visiting with old friends and some of the games. Attendance is down for many reasons. The big city private schools playing in D3 and D4 are glorified AAU teams and don't bring any fans. In general, the paying public gets sick of seeing this every year. Lutheran East and Wellington (private schools) basically turned over their rosters from last year with transfers from the larger population areas they are located in. Not saying they are cheating, but it definitely isn't fair. The new competitive balance rules will do little to nothing to change things. If you read the new formulas it would take having almost the entire roster living outside the school area to even move the classification 1 division. I think the only answer is to have separate tournaments for the publics and privates. I have never been for this in the past, but I am now. It is too bad for schools like Delphos St. John, because I think they do not abuse the system, but the spineless OHSAA continues to let this obvious broken and getting worse system to continue. I know some public schools use open enrollment to attract athletes, but they are just rookies when compared to some of the private schools.

#13 Ericles

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Posted 26 March 2017 - 09:44 AM

So why is a public school with state-wide open enrollment OK, but a private school is not?

#14 Outspoken

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Posted 26 March 2017 - 10:15 AM

Here's an idea: in football, we have 7 divisions. How about we keep D1, D2, D3 and D4 for the public schools and add 2 private divisions.......one for D1/D2 size and one for D3/D4.....that way a Delphos St. John's or a Norwalk St Paul would have a chance. If you did just 1 private division, DSJ would never be able to compete with the Moellers and St Eds of the world. Just a thought. I think the private divisions would actually be fun to watch and competitive too. Trouble is.....that would be 6 more games added to State. How and when would you do it at one location? Start the tourney Wednesday? It would still be tough and make a long weekend even longer. I still love the State Tournament.....it just needs some tweaking. How will a team from Putnam County or any small public school ever have a shot at a D4 title when you have schools like Wellington, Harvest Prep, Africentric, Lutheran East etc there in the same division? Completely unfair and it pisses most people off. It's getting ridiculous folks. Just my thoughts

#15 waterloowonder

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Posted 26 March 2017 - 11:00 AM

View PostOutspoken, on 26 March 2017 - 10:15 AM, said:

Here's an idea: in football, we have 7 divisions. How about we keep D1, D2, D3 and D4 for the public schools and add 2 private divisions.......one for D1/D2 size and one for D3/D4.....that way a Delphos St. John's or a Norwalk St Paul would have a chance. If you did just 1 private division, DSJ would never be able to compete with the Moellers and St Eds of the world. Just a thought. I think the private divisions would actually be fun to watch and competitive too. Trouble is.....that would be 6 more games added to State. How and when would you do it at one location? Start the tourney Wednesday? It would still be tough and make a long weekend even longer. I still love the State Tournament.....it just needs some tweaking. How will a team from Putnam County or any small public school ever have a shot at a D4 title when you have schools like Wellington, Harvest Prep, Africentric, Lutheran East etc there in the same division? Completely unfair and it pisses most people off. It's getting ridiculous folks. Just my thoughts

This actually makes sense. For basketball they could go back to 3 divisions for public schools and 2 for privates. This still wouldn't solve the Africenrtic (public school) issue since they control their enrollment but attract students/athletes from all of Columbus. Something would have to be put in to bump schools like this up to the biggest school division.

#16 waterloowonder

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Posted 26 March 2017 - 11:05 AM

View PostEricles, on 26 March 2017 - 09:44 AM, said:

So why is a public school with state-wide open enrollment OK, but a private school is not?

It is not okay. Only a few big city public schools do this, and a good percentage of the private schools excel at it. Bottom line is the big city private schools attract athletes from large population areas while keeping their enrollment low. NOT FAIR....

#17 Bobby

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Posted 26 March 2017 - 11:14 AM

Koza did an interview with OHSAA commissioner Dan Ross on Friday before a game and transfers were discussed. One suggestion presented to the OHSAA was that transfers can play the regular season but not the tournament, maybe at least for the first year. Thoughts?

#18 waterloowonder

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Posted 26 March 2017 - 11:22 AM

View PostBobby, on 26 March 2017 - 11:14 AM, said:

Koza did an interview with OHSAA commissioner Dan Ross on Friday before a game and transfers were discussed. One suggestion presented to the OHSAA was that transfers can play the regular season but not the tournament, maybe at least for the first year. Thoughts?

At least they are thinking about it. Transfers are only part of the problem. The biggest issue, in my opinion, is big city private schools being able to attract players from large population areas and playing in D3 and D4.

#19 Outspoken

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Posted 26 March 2017 - 01:43 PM

Agree Waterloo. I think maybe my idea of 4 public and 2 private divisions could be tweaked to 3 public (like it used to be with AAA, AA, and A) and 2 private could work. You would only be looking at 1 extra division now and add only 3 more games to State Tourney. So 15 games.......3 games Wednesday......all semis. 4 games Thursday.......all semis. 4 games Friday.....3 semis and the latest game (4th game) a final and then 4 finals on Saturday. Would that be too much? What about utilizing 2 sites? Nationwide and Value City or St John and Value City? Just rotate divisions and sites over the years?

Just an idea

#20 Rocketman

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Posted 26 March 2017 - 02:38 PM

View PostBobby, on 26 March 2017 - 11:14 AM, said:

Koza did an interview with OHSAA commissioner Dan Ross on Friday before a game and transfers were discussed. One suggestion presented to the OHSAA was that transfers can play the regular season but not the tournament, maybe at least for the first year. Thoughts?
That would make too much sense, so the OHSAA won't consider it......they are tools and they're ONLY concerned with their back pockets. Forget all the nonsense about "Respect the Game" and their other circus promotions. $$$ is the driving force and their books aren't open. The OHSAA is only thinking of themselves. Believe it
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