Comparing AAC and Big East attendance

In case you missed it, I had a bit of an infatuation with the AAC v. Big East storyline a few months back, or Metro 9 v C7 as I called it before we knew who would be called what.

Since then, the initial fervor has died down with most declaring the Big East a “major” conference and one on a different level than the AAC, at least the one without Louisville and Rutgers and with East Carolina, Tulane and Tulsa.

When I was writing the post about the attendance for 2013, I came across my spreadsheets and figured I’d update them and post a quick blurb. Again, this doesn’t include the schools departing after this season and does count the ones coming in. It alters the numbers tremendously, but is more indicative of the truth than the rental conference it is today.

As you can see, while the top of the AAC is strong, the bottom is beyond weak. That’s just not focusing on attendance, either. Over half of the league has a 5-year average Ken Pom rating of over 100. 

The Big East has DePaul. Good ol’ DePaul. Speaking of the Blue Demons, I was beyond surprised to see them rank anywhere not in the bottom two. I realize they are using tickets sold and not butts in seats, but that’s still some dedication from those fans to keep shelling out for one of the worst teams in a decent conference the past five years.

Another quirky fact that may only interest myself and Peter King, Marquette is the only school of the bunch that has had declining attendance each of the past five years. Other schools have dropped much more, Creighton lost 2,400 fans from 2009-2011, but all have had at least one upswing in the past half decade.  

As for the capacity percentages, I left three blanks as those teams have multiple home venues, though St. John’s is easily the least supported capacity-wise. Memphis is getting an astounding 91% attendance the past five years. That’s incredible considering they played in a terrible conference, have a large venue and only have one tournament win (that counted). 

Xavier (with a mere 98% capacity attendance) and Creighton get nods of approval as well.

All in all, there’s not much else  to be gleamed from this.  But seriously, look at those bottom half AAC attendance numbers. Ouch.