Cajuns are after 18th Win when they host Troy on Thursday

[tetragrammaton]

The stuff of legends.

https://forumeus.com/...?9178-Red-Dots scroll down to post #8 and then check out Jay Walker's explanation for how they came about.

Cool, funny, legendary.

Wow, that is cool. Thanks for pointing that out.

[CajunRed]

Marty was here from 1986-1997. He holds 9 of the top 20 attendance records in the Cajundome, including the top 4 and 6 of the top 10. Jesse was here from 1997-2004, with 5 of the top 20 and 2 of the top 10. They averaged virtually the same season attendance, with Jesse averaging 4,965 in his 7 years, Marty with 4,963 in his 11. Both of them averaged above the 28 year average attendance of the Dome, 4,730.

Everyone will have their own preference as to what is a good number for attendance. For me, 50% of seating capacity is the minimum acceptable number for "good" attendance. Stated seating capacity for basketball in the Cajundome is 11,550, so, to me, 5,775 would be a good average attendance for the season.

50% is so arbitrary. So if we move tomorrow to an arena of 7,000...3,500 would be good?

[CrazyCajun]

50% is so arbitrary. So if we move tomorrow to an arena of 7,000"...3,500 would be good?

Yes and if the dome fit 22k....9k per game would not be good. It's really a genius way to look at it.

[CajunEXPRESS]

Ok, I do believe that we put in crowds listed near 10k in Blackham Lamar era. Granted probably more like 7.5 k but regardless USL had around 10K students, Lafayette the city around 60K residents and the parking was atrocious. Seats sucked, and it was heaven. If you were a student and you did not get there at least an hour before the game, you probably did not get in.

To consistently put less then 6K in the dome is a shame. The university has 17k students, Lafayette the city 122k, great parking, great seating, and things just do not rock because the fans refuse to make it rock.

I am not sure the Lamar era team could stay on the floor with these kids today, but they blew the opposition away almost every game. No doubt Lamar, Ebron, and Payton Townsend could play today. Almost every game was a race to the century mark. And we were upsetting the established basketball world, especially the established basketball world in the South. It was great to be a troublemaker.

[Duggie35]

Ok, I do believe that we put in crowds listed near 10k in Blackham Lamar era. Granted probably more like 7.5 k but regardless USL had around 10K students, Lafayette the city around 60K residents and the parking was atrocious. Seats sucked, and it was heaven. If you were a student and you did not get there at least an hour before the game, you probably did not get in.

To consistently put less then 6K in the dome is a shame. The university has 17k students, Lafayette the city 122k, great parking, great seating, and things just do not rock because the fans refuse to make it rock.

I am not sure the Lamar era team could stay on the floor with these kids today, but they blew the opposition away almost every game. No doubt Lamar, Ebron, and Payton Townsend could play today. Almost every game was a race to the century mark. And we were upsetting the established basketball world, especially the established basketball world in the South. It was great to be a troublemaker.

Remember, during the Lamar, Ebron, Townsend era, we were in Blackham watching a top 10 rated team. I guarantee you that should UL ever get back to putting a top 25 team on the court we won't be on this message board talking about lack of attendance. Big time winning solves all attendance problems!

[lcitsh]

50% is so arbitrary. So if we move tomorrow to an arena of 7,000...3,500 would be good?

That's why I said this standard is for me. This is just my preference. Just to give you my particular scale, 85-100% average of capacity is excellent, 60-85% is very good, 45-60% is good, 30-45% is fair, below 30% is poor.

[CajunEXPRESS]

Just let it go.

[zephyr]

Crowds have not been that high by any stretch. Winning this year...then winning next year...and the next is what it takes to build the crowds back to the 7k to 9k we've had in glory years past.

With that said, though, I've seen some games on TV this year involving some pretty solid athletic programs...and I've seen MANY half filled arenas. Can't explain it. I guess the competition from so much sporting events on TV doesn't help.

Did we ever have crowds in the 9k range? I don't ever remember coming to the Cajundome and seeing 9k fans consistently and don't really remember 7k consistently. I remember coming during the 90's a lot and there were 5-6k maybe. Even back in the Blackham days, I don't think we put more than 5-6k people in there. I could be wrong.

However, I just think it will take a wave of momentum for the people who haven't gone much recently to come back. I think some are either disenchanted with Marlin or with the ups and downs that we've seen over the past 6-7 years.

[zephyr]

I go no matter what. I go to football, basketball, baseball, softball...no matter what. Many on this board are "no matter what fans". There are fewer no matter what fans than there used to be.

Its a time thing. I don't have time to go to everything and if I lay "no matter what" on my wife's doorstep, I'll be looking for somewhere else to live. With kids activities 3 nights a week and often traveling for those same kids on weekends and such, its hard to be able to make everything.

[zephyr]

I'll have to disagree with you, my Dad starting to bring me to games in the Fletcher era and I have been going since. I Believe the crowds were great during the Evans era.

I don't know what the actual numbers for the Fletcher era were although I attended many games then, but the highest average attendance number I could find for the Evans years was 5,100 people per game. However, most of Evans' years, including the tourney team year with Tiras Wade and company averaged much less than that. I don't know what the trend is or why but we weren't exactly packing the house with Evans or Fletcher

[lcitsh]

I don't know what the actual numbers for the Fletcher era were although I attended many games then, but the highest average attendance number I could find for the Evans years was 5,100 people per game. However, most of Evans' years, including the tourney team year with Tiras Wade and company averaged much less than that. I don't know what the trend is or why but we weren't exactly packing the house with Evans or Fletcher

Evans' best year was 2002-03, with an attendance average of 5,670. Fletcher's best year was 1993-94, with 6,066.

[cajun4life]

The Cajun Dome is just too darn big for our program and 90% of the D1 programs in the country. We need a smaller more intimate venue like Blackham was. If we had and 8500 seat basketball only arena then you would start to see an arena that was packed. It would create excitement and lead to sellouts. The Cajun Dome will NEVER do that for this program. If we had an arena like Troy's brand new facility we would not be complaining because we would have had great crowds for a few of the games.

If we were serious about basketball we would downsize and build a nicer facility, but we do not have the leadership in place to push the issue and raise the money for it. Hell they don't want to make a huge grassroots push to raise the money for the current Master Plan. Although I am happy that we are starting it.