Whiteout at BJC tomorrow.
- Thread starter dcf4psu
- Start date
Are they going to paint all the empty seats white?
was just going to say that... What a shame the seats in the BJC aren't white Instead they're a shade of blue that isn't even the school color.
Where's the update on the master plan we were supposed to see last summer? Have they released the BJC renderings yet?
Until we can fill at least half the BJC, i say move bball to Rec hall.
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What about the curtain covering the upper level, will that be white too? TIC I’ll be there with 5000 of my friends.
They have sold more tickets for every game at the BJC this year than would fit in Rec Hall - and also topped more than half of the BJC's capacity for every game too. Moving to Rec Hall makes no sense.
Apparently we’re using the Pitt football method of counting attendance.LSHIPM
PSU ICA reported “attendance” for the UMBC game as just over 9,000 (which was, IIRC, the highest reported “attendance” figure of the year).
I’m not sure how many were there, but if I had known anyone was interested, I coulda’ counted them.
Whatever the number was - it would not have overtaxed the State College High Gymnasium
LSHIPM
PSU ICA reported “attendance” for the UMBC game as just over 9,000 (which was, IIRC, the highest reported “attendance” figure of the year).
I’m not sure how many were there, but if I had known anyone was interested, I coulda’ counted them.
Whatever the number was - it would not have overtaxed the State College High Gymnasium
Doesn't matter. The seats were sold. Moving games to Rec Hall hits the bottom line because you lose out on that revenue.
What PSU (and most schools) use for attendance figures is "tickets distributed" which is basically tickets sold whether there's a fanny in the seat or not. Since ticket sales translates to revenue, it's not a bad way to do it.
Thank you for your intelligent contribution to the discussion.
LOL
You’re the one who took the first exit to StoopidVille.
FTR - all the major sports franchises do it that way (either tickets sold or tickets distributed) - and they have done it that way for decades.
LINK
There are also revenue sharing implications. Big Ten schools share football and basketball ticket revenues, so attendance figures need to be based on actual sales.
LOL
You’re the one who took the first exit to StoopidVille.
Shame on me for discussing lost revenue due to not being able to sell as many tickets. Didn't realize that was a "stoopid" conversation to have.
BJC is an awful basketball venue,
Period.
Games in Rec Hall might not have as many tickets sol;d, but it can be a great basketball venue as a snakepit
Period.
Games in Rec Hall might not have as many tickets sol;d, but it can be a great basketball venue as a snakepit
True. When Northwestern did their $110 million renovation of their basketball arena they removed approximately 1,100 seats. The arena post renovation held just over 7,000. Two of the best home court arenas are Cameron Indoor (approximately 9,000) and the Palestra (around 8,700) both similar to Rec Hall.
Tim Curley did a such a great job with the men's basketball program from 1995-2011, wouldn't you agree. He left it in such great shape that we now discuss the merits of selling seats that nobody sits in.
Duke could clearly sell lots more tickets to their home games if they chose to build a new, larger arena. They consciously choose not too and it give them a great home court advantage. I still think Penn State should use the Villanova model. Villanova plays their “big attendance” games at the 20,000 seat Wells Fargo Center in downtown Philly and the rest on campus at the Finneran Pavilion, which is not much bigger than Rec Hall at 6,500 seats. Penn State could play the games against the lesser Big Ten teams at Rec Hall, the games they have their best chance to win, where a true home court advantage might just get them a couple of extra wins.
A couple of home wins against middle of the road Big Ten teams would have been the difference between the NIT and the NCAA last year.
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They'll have more at rec hall for wrestling tomorrow than the white out in the BJC. Basketball has become a train wreck.
Agreed...the BJC has never given Penn State the home court advantage it needs. May be more tickets sold than what Rec Hall can hold, but the lower bowl being almost half empty and the black curtain down for EVERY home game in the upper bowl doesn't lie about their "home court advantage."
It did in 95-96. But back then, even women’s games were drawing 10k plus.
When the BJC is full, the HCA is fine. But put 7k in there and it’s very underwhelming.
Debatable, but they certainly won't sell more tickets (PSU has opened one of the upper decks for the game, so ticket sales will be around 10,000+).
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Put $110 million into Rec Hall and then you can make a case for moving back there. But without an investment like that, it makes zero sense to consider it.
We've played three games there and have yet to see anything like a home court advantage. The arena was packed for Princeton and we lost. Two years later, they tried again. This time, attendance was terrible and the team almost lost to Louisiana-Monroe in one of the games, trailing most of the game before finally winning 54-50 in an ugly game. PSU shot 10-46 from behind the arc in the three games we played there - not pretty and not an advantage at all.
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A great home court advantage cannot make up for a bad basketball team or even a good team that has a bad night. Duke, Kansas, Kentucky, etc, who play in what are considered to be the toughest places to win on the road, lose home games once in a while. North Carolina got pounded at home yeasterday by Louisville. I think a loud, crazy home atmosphere makes a difference in the last few minutes of the game when the pendulum can swing either way, but the home team has to play well enough to get to that point for the home court advantage to matter.
I’m sorry, but I still remember the early days of Penn State’s entry into the Big Ten when Bruce Parkhill’s teams won a lot of games they had no business winning in Rec Hall. I remember the announcers commenting on how difficult it was for opposing teams to take the ball out of bounds because the students were so close they had to shift their legs to make room for the guy taking the ball out. I remember opposing coaches, Bobby Knight comes to mind, talking about how they hated to play there. There is no doubt in my mind that Rec Hall was a home court advantage for those Parkhill teams. We have lost this with the BJC.
I'd credit those wins a lot more to Parkhill than I would to Rec Hall. There are dozens of real world reasons against playing in Rec Hall and they aren't overcome by one hypothetical home court advantage reason for playing there.
What are the dozens of real world” reasons? I only see one, ticket revenue. If there are indeed more tickets sold for every men’s basketball game than Rec Hall’s capacity, Penn State would clearly lose some ticket revenue playing in 6,000 seat capacity Rec Hall. That’s the only downside I see, period. If a top program like Villanova, which likely funds most of their other sports from basketball operations can use the approach I suggested, why couldn’t Penn State?
To me the bottom line is simple: Put a winning program on the floor and the BJC will make a fine HCA. I'm very interested to see what will happen after this season with Coach Chambers. It's time to hand over the reigns to a young assistant from a winning program. What's the worst that can happen? He's successful and leaves for an established basketball team? I'd sign up for that. At least the mojo will have been changed.
- Locker room facilities
- New basketball floor needed
- Bench seating not individual seats
- No luxury boxes
- Lack of concessions
- Parking for fans
- Press facilities
- Rest rooms
- Overlapping seasons with wrestling, women's volleyball, men's volleyball, women and men's gymnastics causes scheduling issues.
- Cross campus trek from practice facility at the Jordan Center.
i agree with 1 of your points
- Locker room facilities - Rec must still have locker roooms. Share with the wrestling team.
- New basketball floor needed - agree, but this is a nominal expense. The wood floor is already there, just needs some sanding and some paint.
- Bench seating not individual seats - 95% of the seats in Beaver Stadium are bench seats and that doesn’t appear to be a problem with the football team drawing fans
- No luxury boxes - just like with fewer ticket sales, this is simply a revenue hit
- Lack of concessions. - they have consession stands there.
- Parking for fans - this isn’t a problem for the other sports when they have sellouts
- Press facilities - while a Men’s basketball game probabaly draws more press than volleyball, wrestling, or gymnastics I don’t see this as a big problem. TV works from there as multiple Volleyball games are televised on ESPN and BTN.
- Rest rooms - they have rest rooms there, I’ve used them at volleyball games
- Overlapping seasons with wrestling, women's volleyball, men's volleyball, women and men's gymnastics causes scheduling issues. - I’m sure Sandy can hire a new Assistant AD to work this.
- Cross campus trek from practice facility at the Jordan Center. - if they are going to play the bulk of their games there, they should practice at Rec as well
This is exactly what PSU tried with Chambers. Before his couple years as HC with BU, he was an "up-and-coming" assistant at Nova.
I would argue that your worst case scenario is, realistically, the best case scenario.
I might buy that... I did like Chambers video in the Beav this season, for it being a recorded commercial to sell basketball tickets I thought they did a good job getting the fans in on a chant and thinking about basketball. Likely the optimism from last year, the stadium promo, etc have lead to the seats sold giving them an average of 8509 per game at home. Not too shabby.
Here's a look at the season so far.
North Florida W 87–72 Bryce Jordan Center (9,060)
Jacksonville State W 76–61 Bryce Jordan Center (7,722)
at DePaul L 70–72 OT Wintrust Arena (3,926)
13 Virginia Tech W 63–62 4–2 Bryce Jordan Center (8,373)
at No. 24 Maryland L 59–66 Xfinity Center (15,481)
Indiana L 62–64 Bryce Jordan Center (8,972)
Colgate W 76–65 Bryce Jordan Center (8,056)
vs. NC State L 78–89 Boardwalk Hall (N/A)
vs. Duquesne W 73–67 PPG Paints Arena (2,537)
at Alabama L 64–73 Coleman Coliseum (10,142)
UMBC W 74–52 Bryce Jordan Center (9,042) (Yeah right)
at. 2 Michigan L 55–68 Crisler Center (12,707)
No. 22 Wisconsin L 52–71 Bryce Jordan Center (8,342)
at Nebraska L 64–70 Pinnacle Bank Arena (15,753)
In 2017 Penn State made $933,082 in revenue from ticket sales and averaged an announced paid figure (tickets sold, not bodies in seats) of 7,345. I bet the actual number is closer to 6,000. When Penn St played princeton at Rec hall in 2013, the announced crowd was 6,188. You can bet that was fairly close to the number who were there. Looking at this picture, I wish I would have been. (Even though we lost in OT)
I get that the BJC could offer much larger crowds, and every season it seems there's 1-3 games where they get 11k+ for the games where they foresee the team drawing that in attendance the games could always be moved over... Instead we're stuck with the majority of the games looking like this.
Is it just my imagination? Maybe it's not that bad....
I googled "Ranking of Basketball arenas in Big Ten"... Couldn't find one article that didn't have PSU listed last at #14.
1)
14. Bryce Jordan Center (Penn State)
Most comparable to: the Luxor Las Vegas casino.
Don’t be fooled by the pretty exterior. When I saw the blue and white band of light revolving around the outside, it had me impressed. But the inside is mood-shattering. A curtain blocks out the entire upper level, empty because of attendance issues. It’s a nice enough arena structurally, but when I heard a yell from the crowd, I could pinpoint where it came from within seconds. That shouldn’t happen in a building that can (but won’t) hold over 15,000 fans. Sure, you can enjoy a basketball game there. Just go in with low expectations. (Link)
2)
ESPN
14. Penn State Nittany Lions: Bryce Jordan Center, opened in 1995
Speaking of exceptions, here's one that proves the rule. The Bryce Jordan Center is a perfectly nice and relatively new arena that few people actually ever enter, at least for Penn State basketball games. In a gym that seats 15,000, the Nittany Lions averaged just 6,909 per game last season. "They have a dark gym," Indiana guard Yogi Ferrell said in March. "And it's a little quiet."
Fun fact: In 2011, the Nittany Lions were barred from practicing in their own gym for two straight weeks by famous rock artists/time lords Bon Jovi (Week 1) and a career fair (Week 2). Ouch.
3)
Chicago Tribune:
14. Bryce Jordan Center, Penn State: The 15,261 seats here are about 11,000 too many. The school's annual charitable dance marathon brings more of a crowd to Bryce Jordan — rightly so — than basketball games do. During the Big Ten season, those empty seats in a cavernous arena are just sad reminders for Nittany Lions fans that football season still is months away.
4)
LA Times
#14
5)
Reddit: ". What's the worst basketball arena in your conference? First response? First response, "everyone glares at Penn State"
one more...
6)
watchstadium.com
14. Penn State (25) – There have actually been nine NCAA Tournament appearances for the Nittany Lions, but just one since 2001. Pat Chambers has knocked on the door, but has come up empty thus far in seven seasons. Ed DeChellis was 1-for-8 before being let go. Penn State ranked in the bottom four of every category except for admission requirements.
Where they win:“Penn State football. Honestly, that’s the biggest selling point.” – Big Ten assistant
The knock: “They don’t have enough support, not for the men’s basketball program.” – Big Ten head coach
Personally, I think 1-3k in attendance would be worth creating a home court environment while Penn State irons out this "Master Plan." Realistically basketball and wrestling should trade places, I feel like both teams would be much better served in the other's respective facility. Not saying this is a long term solution, but the buzz of 6100 consistently packing Rec Hall near the center of campus a short walk from downtown, certainly gives the lions an atmosphere they can build on. The BJC is a mausoleum, and the program has been dead pretty much ever since we moved to it.
Where's the master plan sandy?
One thing not being considered here is the thousand(s) of season tickets purchased by fans who only use them a couple of times per year (hence, the ticket sold consistently being much higher than the butts in seats count).
If the transition was made, you better believe that these fans would still have their seats and the seats would still go empty. So, even if sold out, it wouldn't be packed to the rafters. On top of that, it would make it that much harder for fans who actually want to attend the game walk up and get tickets (because of technically selling out without many walk-up sales). I have heard that this amounts for 5k+ tickets. When you are talking about a 6k person arena, that doesn't leave many tickets to go around.
If the transition was made, you better believe that these fans would still have their seats and the seats would still go empty. So, even if sold out, it wouldn't be packed to the rafters. On top of that, it would make it that much harder for fans who actually want to attend the game walk up and get tickets (because of technically selling out without many walk-up sales). I have heard that this amounts for 5k+ tickets. When you are talking about a 6k person arena, that doesn't leave many tickets to go around.
LOL. You can't be serious. The BJC is a sub-par facility. Rec Hall is below sub-par. Nobody in the right mind would believe that Rec Hall is satisfactory for a major basketball program.
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