The headline last week on a Jacob Feldman article on the sports business Website Sportico.com, was, “Attendance is down across sports.” As compared to 2019-20, Feldman cited significant increases in the numbers of NFL, NBA and NHL teams this season playing before less than 90-percent capacity.
While the sample size is small, attendance has so far this season been soft for UK basketball games in Rupp Arena at Central Bank Center.
For the Wildcats' 2021-22 exhibition opener against Kentucky Wesleyan, the announced attendance in Rupp — the number of tickets distributed to the event — was 17,133 in the 20,545-seat venue.
The figure for the second exhibition, against Miles College, was 17,814.
With Robert Morris as the foe for the official home opener Friday night, the announced crowd figure was 18,454. Look, a multitude of sports teams — college and professional — would salivate over attendance numbers such as these.
Walter Cornett, of Glendale, Kentucky, is the owner and operator of Walter's Wildcat World. He founded WildcatWorld.com in 1998 making it one of the oldest Kentucky basketball fan sites in operation today.