South Carolina WBB nearly doubled men’s team in fan attendance. Here’s the breakdown
The gap between South Carolina’s men’s and women’s basketball teams widened seemingly every game.
Under Dawn Staley, the Gamecocks women’s basketball team finished the regular season with a 29-2 record and — yet again — will be among the favorites to win the national title.
The men’s program, however, will miss March Madness for the second-straight season after a 13-18 regular-season finish that included 14 SEC losses.
Through an open records request, The State asked for data showing the scanned ticket totals — a reflection of the number of fans who entered the arena — for all basketball games this season.
As the fate of both programs became clear, the gap in fan interest widened.
While the announced attendance for South Carolina’s women’s team was 15,953, the actual number of fans who watched Staley’s team averaged 8,626 per game.
The larger attendance number that gets publicized includes tickets sold or given away, as well as student tickets and the band.
Compare that with the data from USC’s 19 men’s home games. The average announced attendance averaged 10,797. In reality, Lamont Paris’ team drew 4,398 folks per game.
In other words, the Gamecocks’ women’s basketball team was drawing nearly twice as many fans per game as the men.
What also became clear was, as the fate of both programs became clear, the gap in fan interest widened.
During the non-conference slate, the WBB teams were drawing 7,500 fans per game compared with just under 4,400 showing up for MBB.
And it should be noted that both teams were affected by weather.
Following a winter storm, the WBB game against Vanderbilt brought in under 6,000 fans, the lowest total for an SEC game. A few days later, after snow fell on South Carolina, the men played LSU in front of 1,662 people.
On the flip side, the most-attended WBB game at Colonial Life Arena this season came against Texas in mid-January (13,164), edging the Gamecocks’ win over Ole Miss (12,746).
The Gamecocks’ men drew over 6,000 fans for only one game this season, a Saturday matinée against Georgia in which USC lost in front of 6,396 fans.
