1. Welcome to SportsJournalists.com, a friendly forum for discussing all things sports and journalism.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register for a free account to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Access to private conversations with other members.
    • Fewer ads.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Bad news for college baseball

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Aaron Suttles, Jan 26, 2011.

  1. Johnny Dangerously

    Johnny Dangerously Well-Known Member

    And don't get me started on "Over a million fans attended SEC baseball games last season." Outrageously false.

    But like I said, nobody gives a shit.
     
  2. Batman

    Batman Well-Known Member

    I'd say it definitely has. The old Alex Box's capacity was somewhere around 6,500, IIRC. So for the big SEC weekends and regionals they might cram 7,000 in there. Those 7K-plus crowds were record-setters, though.
    I believe the new stadium's capacity is around 9,000. Whatever it is exactly, it's a good bit more than the old stadium, so they're obliterating the old records on a regular basis. Kind of like how the 82,000 fans at the LSU-Washington football game in 1982 was a record for almost 30 years. Once they added the other upper deck to Tiger Stadium, it was out of the top 10 within two seasons.
     
  3. BrianGriffin

    BrianGriffin Active Member

    They list the current capacity at 10,150. Makes sense considering they are saying they average about that many fans. They probably sell out of tickets, but I'm sure many season ticket holders do not attend every game so they are tickets sold but not butts in the seat.
     
  4. Johnny Dangerously

    Johnny Dangerously Well-Known Member

    Well, attendance for LSU football games and the "attendance" figures LSU announces are two different things too. The games with 92,000 in the place are more rare than you'd think. Skip Bertman talked about it a couple of years ago. People prefer the fiction to the truth.
     
  5. Johnny Dangerously

    Johnny Dangerously Well-Known Member

    And my research revealed they didn't get 7,000 or more in the old Box until the final series, if memory serves. Ted Stickles showed me the numbers. The list of games with 7K was a fantasy of tickets sold and distributed, not attendance. But once the fiction becomes reality for people, it's hard to convince them otherwise. Many games of 6,000 or more was an impressive feat, but lazy reporting perpetuated the myth of 7,000.
     
  6. JayFarrar

    JayFarrar Well-Known Member

    Ain't that the truth. Explaining acutal vs. paid attendance to fans is damn near impossible.
     
  7. Johnny Dangerously

    Johnny Dangerously Well-Known Member

    So, I did some digging through my archives and realized I was confusing the 7,000 milestone with the number of times LSU reached listed capacity at the old Alex Box Stadium. The listed capacity was above 7,000, not in the 6,000s, as Batman posted, but I was wrong about the number of times LSU surpassed 7,000.

    But I was right about the larger issue, that it didn't happen very often. I did these lists late in the 2008 season, the last year of the old stadium:

    Largest crowd
    (regular season)
    2001 -- 6,854 (Ole Miss, April 13)
    2002 -- 6,453 (Alabama, May 20)
    2003 -- 6,471 (Auburn, May 9)
    2004 -- 6,388 (Miss. State, March 26)
    2005 -- 6,297 (Tulane, March 8 )
    2006 -- 4,711 (Tulane, March 7)
    2007 -- 5,360 (Tulane, Feb. 27)
    2008 -- 5,510 (Indiana, Feb. 22)

    Largest crowd
    (including postseason)
    2001 -- 7,072 (Va. Commonwealth, regional)
    2002 -- 7,190 (UL-Lafayette, regional)
    2003 -- 7,492 (Baylor, super regional)
    2004 -- 7,607 (Texas A&M, super regional)
    2005 -- 6,631 (Rice, regional)
    2006 -- same as in regular season; no postseason
    2007 -- same as in regular season; no postseason


    The 7,607 at the 2004 Super Regional was the school record (breaking a day-old record of nine fewer fans) until the 2008 super regional vs. UC Irvine, the final three games at the old Box.

    Game 1: 7,460 (short of the record). Game 2: 6,971 (well short of the record). Game 3: 8,173 (shattering the record).

    So, LSU surpassed 7,000 at the old Box far fewer times than people think, and exceeded listed capacity even fewer times. I'm certain the figures are much better at the new stadium, but probably not as high as people still think.

    And Jay, the term "paid attendance" represents one of the most widely accepted lies in sports. It's a term with no meaning. I did a column and talked about the "paid attendance" of Titanic's second voyage (the one that never happened). It was a high figure, because people had paid for the trip. I also mentioned I had perfect paid attendance one year when my parents forked out tuition for Catholic high school. I missed class, but I paid for every day, so that's perfect "paid attendance," right?

    What's really bad is when the SID posts a story and sends out a release saying "In front of a record paid crowd of 10,024, the Tigers ..." That kind of wording makes you think 10,024 were in the venue, but when you look more closely, you see a footnote with "actual" attendance much lower. But stories like that are all over the place, and nobody considers it being untruthful. It is. It's language intended to deceive, and the proof that it works is that the myth lives on about LSU drawing 7,000 (or 8,000) a night.

    But like I said, nobody gives a ...

    :)
     
  8. Shaggy

    Shaggy Guest

    I covered college baseball (home games and postseason) for a couple of years and enjoyed it.

    I found the players were great to talk to, and being a huge MLB fan, it was fun to see college stars go on to be Major League players in no time. I saw dozens of current Major Leaguers play in college.

    College baseball has a couple of major flaws:

    1. The weather makes for enormous geographical advantages with few exceptions.

    2. Aluminum bats give hitters a lopsided edge (much like pitching circle distance does the opposite in college softball).

    3. Due to the aluminum, it's common for games to go up to 4 hours. That's not OK in this attention span-starved America.

    4. Due to weather problems in about 65 percent of the country, college baseball schedules are way too dynamic and that makes it hard for casual fans to follow along and become die-hards.

    I occasionally check to see how my alma mater is doing, but I don't follow college baseball much otherwise anymore.
     
  9. Johnny Dangerously

    Johnny Dangerously Well-Known Member

    I miss covering college baseball. It's a lot of fun, especially because the access to players and coaches is far better than in football and, in many places, basketball.

    I am sure Kendall will find a way to continue to do it, and to do it well.
     
  10. Jake_Taylor

    Jake_Taylor Well-Known Member

    It's a recent development, but at Virginia they expanded the stadium last year to meet demand. Capacity is still a little less than 5,000 now and the seats are full for almost every weekend game.
     
  11. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    I'd go to more games, but I'm always worried about getting douched with rain. :D
     
  12. Big Circus

    Big Circus Well-Known Member

    Yeah, they've been drawing pretty well for a few years now, although it helps that they were No. 1 for most of last year. After investing in the stadium, Craig Littlepage needs to make sure he can find his wallet when SEC programs call O'Connor.
     
Draft saved Draft deleted

Share This Page