As far back as 2005, Bradley finished in the top three in average attendance in the Missouri Valley Conference (MVC), yet even after the team\u2019s struggles, they find themselves third in the Valley in average attendance since 2011, behind just Creighton, who left the conference before last season, and Wichita State.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
How can Bradley maintain their position at the top of the attendance lists? The answer is simple: Bradley isn\u2019t the only school dealing with a decline in attendance.<\/p>\n
The problem becomes clear just by looking at other schools around the region. While the average attendance for the NCAA as a whole has remained remarkably consistent over the last decade, other teams have seen measurable declines in attendance barring on-court success, which Bradley certainly has not had.<\/p>\n
![\"Untitled\"](\"http:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/files\/2015\/04\/Untitled-300x180.png\")
<\/p>\n
Take fellow Valley members Drake and Evansville, for example. Drake averaged just over 5,000 fans per game this last decade, but the last three seasons by themselves average out to fewer than 3,900 fans per game. Evansville has dropped nearly 500 fans per season themselves. Schools like Butler University in Indianapolis and Xavier University in Cincinnati have actually seen attendance increase, but improved play on the court is largely the reason why.<\/p>\n
Bradley has seen attendance plummet from just shy of 10,000 fans per game down to the current level, and a lack of student interest could be seen as a reason why.<\/p>\n
Aaron Ferguson, co-President of the Bradley Red Sea, listed two reasons why he believes students do not attend the games.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the biggest two factors are establishing trust and winning,\u201d Ferguson said. \u201cI don’t think the students trust other student-athletes, especially after last season with men’s bball. It’s important that athletes don’t seem to be \u2018bigger\u2019 than everyone else because they play a sport. Any way they can bridge that gap is huge.\u201d<\/p>\n
Associate Athletic Director for External Affairs Brett Burchette said Bradley has already had discussions on how to increase attendance at Bradley\u2019s games this upcoming season, starting with the changes made to the coaching staff.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can highlight a lot of positive change that we have in terms of new excitement, a new direction for Bradley basketball with the hiring of coach Wardle,\u201d Burchette said. \u201cIt\u2019s already got people talking about what the future is going to bring for the program.\u201d<\/p>\n
While people may be talking about the future, Bradley also plans to remind them of the team\u2019s past, according to Burchette.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think for us, highlighting the history of Bradley basketball is going to be important this season,\u201d Burchette said. \u201cPast greats, from individual and a team perspective, is something we\u2019re going to work on from a marketing perspective. Next year is a historical year in terms of the 10th anniversary of our Sweet 16 appearance, our 1000th MVC game. It gives us a great opportunity each game to bring and recognize someone, which I think will be a good connection point for Bradley alums and those who have been Bradley fans.\u201d<\/p>\n
Burchette also said Bradley could introduce new ticket packages to appeal to families, giving them more flexibility when picking games to attend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If you were one of the more than 5,700 people, on average, who made the trip to Carver Arena for one of Bradley\u2019s basketball games this year, it wouldn\u2019t have been too difficult to notice there were a lot more empty seats than there used to be. Bradley\u2019s attendance has been a hot-button issue for fans for years, and the recent lack of success under former head coach Geno Ford didn\u2019t help. Under Ford, Bradley saw a 23 percent decrease in attendance that coincided with losing records in three of Ford\u2019s four seasons at the helm, according to a database of attendance numbers kept by the NCAA. As far back as 2005, Bradley finished in the top three in average attendance in the Missouri Valley Conference (MVC), yet even after the team\u2019s struggles, they find themselves third in the Valley in average attendance since 2011, behind just Creighton, who left the conference before last season, and Wichita State.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[50,182,37],"class_list":["post-853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-car","tag-bradley-basketball","tag-com-425"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=853"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":856,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853\/revisions\/856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/com.bradley.edu\/newslab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}