More Ugly UCLA Hoops Numbers: Atrocious "Attendance" Stats

Bumped. More appalling numbers concerning Dan Guerrero's dumpster fire hoops program. - BN Eds.

We have many stats which demonstrate the futility of UCLA basketball since Kevin Love's last game. Things like number of wins against top 25 teams on the road, conference records, etc. These matter to true fans like the contributors to BN. Unfortunately, Chancellor Block has shown no evidence of being a true fan. I would submit that Dan Guerrero is also not a true fan- otherwise, he would not make lame excuses for the on and off court performance of the train wreck which has become our basketball program.

But there is one stat which should interest Chancellor Block, because it directly impacts how much money he is leaving on the table because he tolerates the Dan and Ben show, as we sink further into the nether regions.

I went through every box score since Kevin Love's last game, and looked at the attendance figure, to see how many times the Bruins played in front of at least 10,000 fans. For anybody who thinks this is a high bar, in the 2011 season, according to ncaa.org, there were 44 schools which an average home attendance in excess of 10,000.

Here is what the box scores show on number of games with attendance over 10,000:

As you can see, the number of home games with attendance over 10,000 has gone down every season. And we have also become a worse draw on the road, as the Dan and Ben show drags the program into almost literal oblivion.

To have only 4% of the games played draw over 10,000 fans would be fairly disappointing for the better mid-major teams, it would be really disappointing for the better major conference teams, and it is absolutely embarassing/appalling for the standards which Coach set.

My sense is that the basketball program has costs which are relatively fixed in nature. It takes the same amount of electricity to heat the building if the seats are filled or not. It takes more or less the same amount of auxiliary staff (security, janitorial, etc) if the seats are filled or not. It definitely takes the same amount of salary for Ben Howland if the seats are filled or not. And, most disturbing of all, it takes the same amount of salary for Dan Guerrero if the seats are filled or not.

So if we could actually reach the lofty heights of schools like Creighton and Wichita State, which drew over 10,000 fans to their home games last season, the extra ticket revenue would drop to the bottom line.

Just think what Chancellor Block would be doing if the Medical Center bed occupancy rate was #65 in the country. That is where our basketball program was in 2011, per ncaa.org.

There is low lying fruit here in terms of easy dollars which would come into the program- can Dan, and let his successor find a successful basketball coach who can get our team back where it belongs.