OSU Basketball Attendance up 44% from 2016

While attendance for college basketball on the whole dipped for a third-straight season, OSU was not among that majority.

In attendance figures for the 2016-17 season released by the NCAA on Tuesday, OSU’s attendance was up — way up — from attendance numbers from the previous season. In fact, OSU was No. 3 in the NCAA among schools with the biggest increase for average attendance with a 44 percent jump from 2015-16.

School	2017 Avg.	2016 Avg.	Increase YOY	Change in Avg.
1. Missouri	9,930	6,295	57%	3,635
2. UCLA	11,182	8,073	38%	3,109
3. Oklahoma State	8,436	5,857	44%	2,579
4. Oregon	9,894	7,466	32%	2,4285
5. Nevada	8,922	6,554	36%	2,368
6. Arkansas State	3,383	1,448	133%	1,935
7. Villanova	9,772	8,119	20%	1,653
8. St. John’s (NY)	8,448	6,944	21%	1,504
9. Creighton	17,412	15,941	9%	1,471
10. South Carolina	13,395	11,995	11%	1,400

There was obviously a pretty low level of optimism around the program in Travis Ford’s final days, which might have been the final nail in his OSU career coffin. So to jump up on average of an extra 2,579 people per game from one year to the next is truly stunning, and a testament to the fan interest Brad Underwood restored in his brief tenure.

Although those numbers are impressive by recent OSU standards, they still fall pretty low on the totem pole in the Big 12 in average attendance behind every team in the league except Baylor and TCU.

School	2017 Avg.
1. Kansas	16,395
2. Iowa State	14,275
3. Kansas State	11,477
4. West Virginia	11,374
5. Texas	10,490
6. Oklahoma	9,296
7. Texas Tech	9,026
8. Oklahoma State	8,436
9. Baylor	6,811
10. TCU	6,126

With a coaching change this offseason prompted by Underwood’s abrupt departure to Illinois, I’d be a little bit surprised to see the attendance increase when these numbers come out this time next year. But if Boynton can maintain the same level of momentum as Underwood, or even capture a portion of the excitement Underwood generated last year, OSU could very well climb its way into the middle-of-the-pack in the conference in average attendance per game.

In average attendance on a league-by-league basis, the Big 12 ranked fourth behind the Big Ten, ACC and SEC, and slightly ahead of the Big East.

School	2017 Total	2017 Avg.
Big Ten	3,119,823	12,235
ACC	3,005,685	11,257
SEC	2,625,959	11,080
Big 12	1,856,017	10,427
Big East	1,702,400	10,014
Pac-12	1,691,216	8,170

Note: The percentage increase of 44% from 2016 was previously reported as 69% but has been updated.