It wasn’t until the game started that I realized the South Gym was packed. Four rows of chairs were full and people were still coming through the door. It was our home opener against Mount Allison University; every basket, every defensive stop was accompanied by enthusiastic cheers. It felt like it mattered.
We found out later that more than 200 people came to watch us play.
“We’ve come a long way in local support for our program,” said coach Fred Connors after the game. “I remember when we started years ago and only had to put out one row of chairs.”
Mike Eagles, athletics director at St. Thomas University, says increasing game attendance needs to be high on his priority list.
“If you look at big schools in the NCAA, you see large crowds of enthusiastic fans – students and community support – at their games and that has to be the benchmark we set for our institution.”
Eagles says crowd support for sports at STU is mediocre, but there are venue issues.
“Soccer attendance was up this year with a better facility but location limits student support. Basketball, as witnessed by the huge crowd the other night at the South Gym, is doing very well, but has limited room for growth because of the lack of seating in the facility.”
The athletics department has been working closely with the communications department, advancement, and res life to bring a higher profile to sports teams. The communications department now has a sports information officer who provides updated information, schedules and results for fans.
One sport struggling with attendance is hockey. The average attendance last year was 445 people for men’s games and 81 for women’s.
Troy Ryan, the new men’s coach, would like to see attendance doubled.
“Some of the guys from my team are coming from a junior situation where they had 9,000 or 10,000 people watching every night. And then they come here, with not a great facility, and there’s 300 people in the building. I mean just the atmosphere itself is depressing to be honest.”
Ryan thinks a big part of the problem is that people don’t understand how important sports are to a university.
“At the university level the reason you have sports is to draw in the alumni and bring the outside people in. No one really wants to even support a university unless there is something to support other than academics.”
Ryan says part of the problem is marketing.
“If there isn’t anyone out there encouraging you and finding creative ways to encourage you to go to games, you aren’t going to go.”
Ryan has asked the athletics department for permission to take control over their seven home games after Christmas break. He plans to extend the games to groups outside the university community.
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When the buzzer sounded at the end of our game against MTA our team celebration was overpowered by cheers. We ended up winning the game by 58 points.
Coach Fred Connors feels that if the crowd is energetic, players can draw from that energy on the court. And somewhere down the road, that energy will become essential.
“If all things on the floor are equal, the crowd can be the difference maker,” he said.
Kathleen McCann plays on the women’s varsity basketball team.
