all the empty seats.
It kills me to see their home games with such sparse attendance but it happens all the time. I only had one chance to see them and I drove about 400 miles to do it.
OK...I'm done.
I don't disagree with you but I guess I don't understand some things and have some opinions on some others. I DID go to the game Tuesday. I've been following this team for something like 29 years and it was the first time I actually went to one. Perhaps shame on me, but it is a fact that traveling in the winter at night and fighting traffic is not a pleasant experience. I went to see that game because It wasn't available on my TV and I really, really wanted to see it.
But here's the thing. When I went online (first time ever) to get a ticket I found very little choice and even less that I was willing to afford. In the lower sections the prices started at 140$ and went to over 300$. But even in the upper sections there was very little choice. I sat in Section 214, row P, and I was offered seats 6 through 10 in that row. Period. I chose that section because it's the closest that was offered to the center of the arena.
Even up there I had as much trouble telling Gabby from Kia from Saniya from Pheesa that I do on TV. (Girls, how about different 'do's, dye jobs; something!). I love the way they really do seem to be interchangeable parts but that's taking it a little too far!
But I digress.
Another post says the attendance was 10,109, and I finally found online the basketball capacity is 15 thousand something. The seats were not all full, but it looked to me like it was more than 2/3 full. There were empty seats above me and at the top of all the sections. They weren't available online if I'd wanted them. Most sections showed no seats available at any price. Yet all over the arena, even in the upper sections, there were quite a few seats unoccupied, including in the sections that were not available online at all. Could they all really be season tickets that were unused, that night of all nights? There were four seats in the row in front of me that were never occupied. Frankly, I considered not going because the choice was so poor.
And I have to say that while I loved the game and am thrilled that I was there, there were a lot of negatives to the XL Center. The seating seems unreasonably narrow for one thing. there was a larger gentleman sitting next to me and even with the seats divided with armrests I felt like I was jammed into a corner.
The thing that was worst for me was the sound level though. The speakers for the arena are over the scoreboard and were almost directly in front of me, so perhaps it's not quite as loud in the lower sections and at the very top. But it was painfully loud to me and my hearing is no longer that great. If I ever go again ear plugs will be mandatory. There is simply no need for that much volume. It makes voices hard to understand simply because it is so overly loud.
I don't know what's general practice because I've never been there before (since the roof collapsed) but I do know they advertised posters for that game. The woman on the other side of me was crazy to get one. (Turned out they were the "90" signs). But only the lower sections got them and perhaps not even all of them.
So the game was great, the girls were GREAT, but the overall experience was not so great. And at home the food and drink is free and easily accessible along with the bathroom.
and they don't get nearly that many for some of the less than challenging opponents they play. According to the interwebs, they are averaging just over 5,000 per game which isn't a great amount for the size of the arena the play in. They will do much better attendance wise for their B1G games. The point is, they seem to be really trying to promote the women's game at Maryland and bring in a younger fan base. Their attendance has been increasing since the 2005-2006 season (and is 5x what it was for the 2000-2001 season), although it seems to have hit a plateau over the past couple of seasons.