Attendance numbers add up to mixed bag
Attendance at state basketball tournaments isn’t what it used to be. Or is it? This year the 4A tournament drew 26,859. Overall numbers for six tournaments were 121,004.
Those figures appear to pale in comparison to the 77,528 fans that flocked to the top state tournament in 1962 or the 44,000 at the former B tourney in Spokane as recently as 1981.
Drawing conclusions, however, is difficult.
“There is no lack of interest,” said Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA) executive director Mike Colbrese. “High school sports have shown strong growth. It’s just that people have a lot more options than they used to.”
Boys basketball was once the only game in town. Today, myriad other sources compete for a share of the same dollar. Yet over the past four years attendance figures for state basketball have remained fairly constant, drawing between 120,000 and 125,000 fans.
Is that enough? Colbrese said this year’s totals were difficult to gauge.
“The only tournament that performed to our level of thought was the 2A,” he said.
The increase of 5,834 2A fans from the previous year was a product of reclassification and move to Tacoma.
The Class 4A was down 6,239, he said, because snowstorms closed Snoqualmie Pass one day and dumped nearly a foot on towns north of Seattle the next and because Eastern Washington schools, which generally attract fewer fans, did so well.
Another factor was the number of schools – 34 – which qualified both boys and girls teams to their respective tournaments and reduced the attendance pool. At the 2B in Spokane, for instance, eight schools brought both teams.
Class 1A remained relatively constant and the split into 2B and 1B tournaments drew a little more than what the one tournament had previously done in Spokane. While 2B attendance at the Spokane Arena dropped 40 percent to 18,310, the 1B added 11,159.
“The 1B grossed what the 1A did its first year in Yakima,” said Colbrese. “We really think it will go up.”
Most disappointing was the 3A tourney. This year’s attendance was 25,142 even with a move from Tacoma back to Seattle where the 3A power lies. The last time the tourney was in Seattle, Michael Ko reported in the Seattle Times, 42,540 attended.
“We were hoping, with the move to Seattle, that the numbers would come back,” Colbrese said.
The issue isn’t so much attendance as escalating cost.
Four decades ago, state basketball may have attracted a similar number of fans. But there were only three tournaments and sites.
This year it took seven sites for 12 tournaments, two each in Yakima and Tacoma, one in Spokane and at two different sites in Seattle. Revenue must increase, and Colbrese thinks it can, or state tournaments will be forced to undergo an overhaul.With luck, that needn’t be the case. Today’s state tournaments are a bargain. Increasingly they are a showcase for outstanding major college and NBA-level talent. Attending a 16-team, modified double-elimination tournament is worth turning off the television and putting away the skis for a week to witness them play firsthand.