[terry]

I haven't studied basketball attendance, but I've spent some time on football attendance. The evidence clearly shows that it takes years to build attendance momentum. In football, it takes two or three consecutive good seasons for attendance to take off. We saw that this year, with attendance picking up in the third straight bowl season.

In addition, attendance depends not only on several winning seasons, but on the expectation of continued winning. If a winning season is viewed as a fluke, the fans don't respond. They respond to the expectation of winning in the future, backed by a record of winning in the past.

If basketball attendance works the same way, then it's no mystery why a good non-conference season didn't boost basketball attendance. A good run for 10 or 12 games doesn't do it. It takes a couple of years, minimum. In my view, we need a strong year in 2012-13. Then we might see attendance pick up in 2013-14.

[terry]

I haven't studied basketball attendance, but I've spent some time on football attendance. The evidence clearly shows that it takes years to build attendance momentum. In football, it takes two or three consecutive good seasons for attendance to take off. We saw that this year, with attendance picking up in the third straight bowl season.

In addition, attendance depends not only on several winning seasons, but on the expectation of continued winning. If a winning season is viewed as a fluke, the fans don't respond. They respond to the expectation of winning in the future, backed by a record of winning in the past.

If basketball attendance works the same way, then it's no mystery why a good non-conference season didn't boost basketball attendance. A good run for 10 or 12 games doesn't do it. It takes a couple of years, minimum. In my view, we need a strong year in 2012-13. Then we might see attendance pick up in 2013-14.