Crowd estimate for Basketball Senior Night.

[zephyr]

Adjusted for inflation, median household income in this city has dropped from a high of $53,000 to $45,500. There is less disposable income to go around in this city. And yes, some of these families are UL fans.

Personally, I think it is more than safe to assume that this reality is one reason (out of many other reasons) that our attendance is lower.

If you are going to maintain that this has absolutely no effect on attendance, if you really beleive that there are no UL fans in Lafayette having to readjust how they spend money these days, I don’t know what else to say to you.

That's a great Google search. However, there are several flaws in your theory. First, you are only looking at Lafayette city proper. You aren't looking into the surrounding areas. Second and perhaps your biggest flaw lies with a lumping of ALL households in the city. Not all demographics are the same. The person who will be looking to go to UL sports is not the person who's family's combined income is $50,000. You look at other sectors and the AHI is double or triple that number. For example, in Youngsville the Median Household Income is nearly $100,000. Why? These are younger families who's members have higher paying jobs than some of the other groups you are lumping together in Upper Lafayette for instance.

These are the people that are recent alums and have disposable income that are our targets. So, outside of getting into an economics debate, I completely understand that our economy is "down" from several years ago. However, you have failed to answer my question about the 80's. That time was a true bust time and it wasn't one or two years, it was a decade. However, our basketball attendance in 86 was almost double what it is now even with a smaller population, fleeting home prices, increasing interest rates etc.. How do you explain that?

[CrazyCajun]

What do you mean by that? Are you trying to say that people who follow baseball are not the same as the ones who follow basketball? There may be some truth to that. Why has the economy not affected the baseball folks? Are they more financially stable? I will add one point about basketball. The people who are fans do support the program with passion. The Rebounders Club raised ~ 70 grand this year for the program. According to information I was given recently, that is twice what the Diamond Club raises for baseball and there are more Diamond Club members.

There are plenty that crossover but there are a lot of people in this area who only support baseball. Every sport has crossover and every sport has people who only support that sport. The clubs have nothing to do with it. How many seats you fill at the rebounders club? Now put those people in the dome or at Russo. Not sure what a handful of boosters financial support has to do with putting thousands of butts in seats at venues. We weren’t putting g this many at baseball in 2013 either. Marlin isn’t in year 4 of some great run, it’s year 1. Will he build on it or will it be the exception. If baseball continues the way they are now i promise you that stadium won’t be sold out next year.

[zephyr]

What do you mean by that? Are you trying to say that people who follow baseball are not the same as the ones who follow basketball? There may be some truth to that. Why has the economy not affected the baseball folks? Are they more financially stable? I will add one point about basketball. The people who are fans do support the program with passion. The Rebounders Club raised ~ 70 grand this year for the program. According to information I was given recently, that is twice what the Diamond Club raises for baseball and there are more Diamond Club members.

Exactly Mike. That is what I'm trying to get CajunRebel to answer. He says economy but I'm calling BS on that, at least to a degree. Baseball people sure have no problem attending games even though we suck. We can't use the economy as a general answer when it isn't supported for all sports.

[Cajunsmike]

Different crowd and while i think
travel ball is a bad model it has increased interest and participation in the sport of baseball.

Let me throw out another theory about baseball support vs basketball support. Let's throw the economy in there as well. Let's suppose people are forced to choose between baseball and basketball since they have to cut back. Many choose baseball due to recent history. The basketball team has won in recent years but not at the post season level baseball did in 2013-2016. Two Regional Finals and two super regionals in those four years. Now if basketball continues to have seasons like this one (or close to it-unrealistic to expect what this team has done every year) while baseball has a couple of disappointing seasons the nos. may reverse. Also, the new ballpark may be helping baseball. Once the novelty of that wears off, performance will dictate if that support is maintained. I say why can't both sports be excellent and make fans have a real tough decision.

[Cajunsmike]

There are plenty that crossover but there are a lot of people in this area who only support baseball. Every sport has crossover and every sport has people who only support that sport. The clubs have nothing to do with it. How many seats you fill at the rebounders club? Now put those people in the dome or at Russo. Not sure what a handful of boosters financial support has to do with putting thousands of butts in seats at venues. We weren’t putting g this many at baseball in 2013 either. Marlin isn’t in year 4 of some great run, it’s year 1. Will he build on it or will it be the exception. If baseball continues the way they are now i promise you that stadium won’t be sold out next year.

I agree no. of boosters or there support level has nothing to do with attendance. Only pointing out that some people who support basketball do so with passion.

[Cajunsmike]

I agree no. of boosters or their support level has nothing to do with attendance. Only pointing out that some people who support basketball do so with passion.

[CrazyCajun]

I agree no. of boosters or there support level has nothing to do with attendance. Only pointing out that some people who support basketball do so with passion.

Every sport does...we just built a $17 million stadium.

[Cajunsmike]

Every sport does...we just built a $17 million stadium.

Good point there which I acknowledge. Also, many people just drove 4 hours to watch a team which has one of the worst hitting lineups in the country at this point. Those people have passion for their team. Some of that passion came about due to 2013-2016 performance. Like everything else, if performance suffers eventually it will impact support. Long way to go however but it is understandable the concern people have about the bats so far. Back to the original topic. We all agree the basketball team deserves a nice thank you for their season so far tonight and I trust they will put on a nice show for the people that can make it to the Dome tonight.

[Ragin4U]

Personally, I will not watch a baseball game on tv. I enjoy them in person. Basketball and football are just fine on TV. I wonder if others feel the same and that might also contribute to the lower than expected attendance.

[talktomewillis]

You are comparing Marlin to guys who had a much smaller field for the tournament so there were less spots to take up for the same number of teams. You also had coaches who won some big games on the road and got some big teams at home. I would say that Marlin has underperformed but I don't want to take away from the season he has had this year. I'm all in and he has my support.

The rest of your argument has merit. You also have to understand that many people's perceptions of Marlin were based on years prior to this one. Multiple NBA players, higher expectations only to never really challenge even for the league top 2 or 3, tons of turnover all while being the highest paid coach in the conference. There were many reasons to be skeptical.

In my opinion, the biggest regular season accomplishment besides this year was in 1983 when the Cajuns made the tournament as an independent. There were good wins...and really, no terrible losses. That was the field of 54.

The previous season, the Cajuns were the auto qualifier from the Southland.

All other NCAA appearances post probation were with 64 or more teams. And, there have been no other at-large appearances.

That was an incredible accomplishment. It was also 35 years ago. We'll agree college basketball has changed drastically since then.

Multiple NBA players? Marlin has had one player drafted. Evans had one. Fletcher had one.

Oh...and Maggard loved Marlin from the day he met him.

[Just1More]

I think baseball has also maintained an allegiance due to the character of Tony. That's not to say that Coach Marlin isn't a man of high character... but Tony is a big part of the support fabric of UL baseball. Tony has gotten his team ranked #1 in the country, while being a pillar of the community.

I have to say, I'm impressed at this very reasonable discussion. I credit much of the civility to Cajunmike's posting style. It seems to garner reasonable (non hostile) conversation.

I have a very hard time criticizing fans. I like evaluating what drives fan support and fan behavior. I do not ever agree with "fan shaming". I'm almost violent about it... if there's one thing that destroys fan support besides your athletic programs sucking... is some knot head with a microphone/website/newspaper attempting to shame fans. If you want more fans, attract them. Period.

[zephyr]

In my opinion, the biggest regular season accomplishment besides this year was in 1983 when the Cajuns made the tournament as an independent. There were good wins...and really, no terrible losses. That was the field of 54.

The previous season, the Cajuns were the auto qualifier from the Southland.

All other NCAA appearances post probation were with 64 or more teams. And, there have been no other at-large appearances.

That was an incredible accomplishment. It was also 35 years ago. We'll agree college basketball has changed drastically since then.

Multiple NBA players? Marlin has had one player drafted. Evans had one. Fletcher had one.

Oh...and Maggard loved Marlin from the day he met him.

You had a team with Long and Payton. They are NBA players, at least Long was and may be one in the future. I think you got my point. In this league, you would hope and expect to have that type of top end talent to either win the league or at least win the conference tournament.