Attendance announced
It was just announced that the attendance for Saturday’s Konica Minolta Face-Off Classic was 17,057. That’s a somewhat surprising number considering the lineup of No. 1 Syracuse vs. No. 15 Georgetown, No. 2 Virginia vs. No. 13 Cornell and No. 14 Johns Hopkins vs. UMBC.
That’s the second-smallest crowd to watch the Face-Off Classic since its debut in 2007. The smallest crowd to attend the event was 17,000 in 2009, and that was just a doubleheader involving Maryland against Duke and Princeton against Johns Hopkins.
Last March, an announced attendance of 19,742 watched the Face-Off Classic’s first foray into three games.
Posted by Edward Lee at 5:53 PM | Permalink
| Comments (7)
Categories: Johns Hopkins, Maryland, UMBC
Categories: Johns Hopkins, Maryland, UMBC
Comments
It's also a surprising number because there is no way there was anyone close to that number of people there. The place was EMPTY.
Posted by: Anonymous | March 12, 2011 6:40 PM
The reality is not having Maryland hurts the draw. That was a wonderful lineup of games but marketing was different last year. I know I bought a ticket to both M&T events through a table at the Ravens games at a big discount. They tried a groupon offer but you need the big state school.
Posted by: Chris | March 12, 2011 7:33 PM
Except for the Final 4 extravaganza weekend, I don't enjoy lacrosse in the pro stadiums. The game seems dwarfed by the stadium size. I chose to attend UMD @ Towson in Unitas stadium intead of the Minolta classic and enjoyed the day more so that I would at the big stadium. Three games also is a bit too much. I'm also put off by the move to night games. If I go see UMBC at UMD next Friday night, I know it will be cold and not nearly as enjoyable as a Saturday afternoon game. The powers that be are hurting the sport more than helping it with these forced attempts to make LX 'bigger'.
Posted by: ewg | March 12, 2011 8:04 PM
Lacrosse attendance stinks in general.
Posted by: Reality | March 13, 2011 3:09 PM
As a long time lacrosse player and fan, I personally would rather go to a college lax game on a college campus. The crowd and the energy is much more suitable for the game. No one enjoys paying double to see a game in an empty 70,000 seat stadium. Also, i would suggest not scheduling this on the first weekend of Spring Break for many of the area private schools.
Posted by: Dan | March 14, 2011 7:20 AM
Empty? You can't believe your lying eyes; there were 17,000 there. Actually, it should have been even emptier! Aren't Georgetown, Cuse, UMBC, Hopkins, Virginia, And Cornell colleges? Well what they heck are they doing playing in this big, cold, empty, purple dump!?
How can these colleges give up their games to play in this hideous, horrendous, cavernous..."venue"? Bring back the game! Keep the money.
Posted by: potpie | March 14, 2011 10:13 AM
Kudos to IL et all, for trying to grow the game. I'm not saying that I have a vision for the future of lax.
One thing for sure, if MLL crowds can't increase neither will large venue college crowds. I watch the Nationals along with 3-4,000 others in T.O. Thats to see the best in the game play.
So far the best crowds taht I've noticed are Syracuse ( Dome) and OSU football plus lax. Is this a formula IL could copy ?
Posted by: freeline | March 14, 2011 10:48 AM