Field goal: 2 points or 3?
So, it might seem like I picked the worst possible time to start an OVC football blog - this week begins the OVC basketball tournament, and basketball, after all, drives the train in the OVC. Or does it?
As a Jax State fan I've heard that argument many times since the Gamecocks joined the conference. "JSU is a football school. We shouldn't be surprised they dominated their first two seasons in the league. We're focusing on basketball. That's what our fans care about."
If fans of OVC schools are indeed basketball mad, one might expect that to show up in attendance numbers. Basketball numbers could be expected to compare favorably to football, since the OVC's football attendance isn't among the largest in I-AA, after all. Instead of assuming this, I decided to check. I was surprised.
I compared average attendance in football for 2005 at each school (including Austin Peay & Morehead, though they don't play in the OVC), to average attendance per game for the 2004-05 men's basketball season. The average football crowd was at least twice as large as the average basketball crowd at six of the 11 schools. The football crowd was larger at 10 of the 11 schools. Only Murray State (which is, indeed, basketballl mad and had an absolutely horrible football team in '05 - 2-9 overall, 0-7 OVC) saw a bigger average basketball crowd.
Now, one might argue that since basketball teams play more games, fans attend a smaller percentage of those games than they do in the much shorter football season. The total crowd for basketball may compare more favorably. I'll have to analyze that later, as I'm about out of time today.
My numbers are pasted below for your reference. The last column is the ratio of the average football crowd to the average basketball crowd. One might read that as a measure of football's fan following compared to that of basketball. My reading: Over all, football is more than twice as important to OVC fans as men's basketball is.
OVC Attendance, Average per game, 2005
School Football B-ball F-B ratio
Jax State 11389 1528 7.45
Samford 5939 1848 3.21
Tennessee St. 15023 4893 3.07
Morehead 6269 2135 2.94
E. Kentucky 8440 3073 2.75
E. Illinois 6182 2295 2.69
Tenn. Tech 6172 3554 1.74
SEMO 6577 3901 1.69
UT-Martin 3865 2680 1.44
Austin Peay 3664 2878 1.27
Murray St. 3660 4373 0.84
OVC average 7016 3014 2.33
Source: NCAA statistics
posted by Jax42 @ 10:06 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
I don't know that the ratio itself means much of anything. I mean, a ratio of 2.0 doesn't necessarily mean football is twice as important as basketball at a given school.
As evidence, I give you the same stats compiled for the Top 10 schools for basketball attendance in 2005:
School F-ball B-ball Ratio
Syracuse 40,252 22,978 1.75
Kentucky 62,450 22,520 2.78
North Carolina 51,667 20,522 2.52
Louisville 41,001 18,746 2.19
Wisconsin 82,551 17,142 4.82
Maryland 52,426 16,632 3.15
Illinois 47,852 16,387 2.92
Kansas 43,675 16,300 2.68
Arkansas 63,678 15,788 4.03
Michigan St. 75,183 14,759 5.10
Top 10 avg: 56,073.5 18,177.4 3.19
Source: NCAA statistics
While we're at it, here are the stats for two more well-known "basketball schools":
Indiana 39,536 14,702 2.69
Duke 9,314 17,486 0.53
Of all these, only Duke has a ratio that backs up the reputation. (Of course, their football team isn't much better than Murray's ...)
I do think JSU's ratio of 7.45 is significant, though. I wonder how that ranks with the rest of the nation?
Hmmn, TSU is tops in both sports
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