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Women's Final Four crowds smallest since 1990s

April 6, 2011

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Arts & Entertainment, etc., College Sports, Final Four, NCAA, Sporting Events, Sports Business, Tourism & Hospitality, Visitor Spending

Tuesday night's NCAA women's basketball championship game at Conseco Fieldhouse in downtown Indianapolis was a near-sellout, but it was the smallest crowd to see the title game since 1997, according to the NCAA.

Texas A&M University, making its first Final Four appearance, defeated the University of Notre Dame, 76-70, before 17,473 spectators. Capacity at the stadium is 18,666.

The 1997 tournament final in Cincinnati drew a crowd of 16,714.

The last time the game was played in Indianapolis, in 2005, a near-record 28,937 were in attendance, but that game was played at the RCA Dome.

Last year's title game in San Antonio drew 22,936.

Sunday's semifinals at Conseco attracted a total of 16,421 to the two-game session, the least-attended semifinal round since 1994, when the event was played in Richmond, Va., and drew 11,966 spectators.

Tickets to this year's event were priced at $175 for the entire tournament and $87.50 for the final game.

The NCAA conducted its first women's Final Four tournament in 1982. Indianapolis will host the event again in 2016.

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not surprised

DonSApril 7, 2011 4:36 PM
First - Butler took the news, headlines and buzz, and just as important, my free time I could devote to sports. For example, Kelly Pickler in concert downtown Sat at 5:50. Butler played at 6pm. Oh well!
Second - Cost. Economy is still down.
Third - scheduling. This needs to be lead in to men's not an afterthought. Games on Friday and Sunday. (and not a late start time - screw the West Coast!)
On Tuesday, we are talking about the finished men's championship game, not the Women's game. At that point - Who cares? (not many evidently).

But main reason I think was Butler. My family did a lot the last time Womens FF was here, but this time, we were consumed with the Butler games and goings on.

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Game Times

Hoops1012April 7, 2011 8:02 AM
The casual fans in the Indianapolis area would have trouble attending the games on Sunday and Tuesday. TV may have something to do with it, but a 7:00 p.m. start for a doubleheader on Sunday night?? I attended and was in bed at 12:45 a.m. and due at work at 8:00 a.m. How is a father going to take his school age daughter if classes are in session the next day? Use some common sense NCAA. Why couldn't the Sunday games have started at 3:00 or 4:00 p.m.? Otherwise, three great women's college basketball games on a neat looking floor.

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WNCAA

atthearbors@comcast.netApril 6, 2011 3:26 PM
Why be surprised? The curiosity of women's bball and/or women's sports in general is beginning to wear off. Perhaps if they played their own game rather than a lame imitattion of men's bball.

It's not good game and just....bad karma.

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Bad Promotion

BadPromotionApril 6, 2011 2:02 PM
No event promotion. Unreasonably high ticket prices. Fuzzy video feed. Terrible marketing. Should have made the tickets $49 each and held it at the LOS. Should also go Friday Sunday or hold it Saturday Monday on the week before the men's final while there is great interest in college basketball.

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Too Much

Lady BB FanApril 6, 2011 1:24 PM
Between my Subaru payments and weekly hair cuts, I don't have enough spare cash to pay those prices.

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Agree on lack of advertising

DanApril 6, 2011 1:17 PM
While I would not have attended the game (I don't follow women's NCAA BB), I didn't realize Indy was hosting the Women's Final Four until 2 weeks before the event (and I work right by Conseco). The only advertising I saw in the area was for the Men's Big 10 tournament.

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too expensive

GPTomApril 6, 2011 1:07 PM
With ticket prices for one game at $87.50 -- it doesn't seem very likely that too many local folks would show up for one of the games - unless they were really die-hard fans. Were those even the prices for the upper level seats? Thats a lot of money!

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Finals Attendance Answer

CathyApril 6, 2011 12:02 PM
The answer to the low number of people turning out to see the Women's Finals game is because no one knew about it locally. The only thing anyone heard about was the Men's Finals and it was in Houston. Sure, televison commericals touted "it's more than 3 games" - talking about tourney town, but the local news carried nothing about the home state Lady Irish in the finals until after the Men's Final game was over. I realize that the women's team draw less revenue, but with better adveritising of their events, that mey improve.

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