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The numbers are in, NC State Basketball finished Top-10 in attendance last season

Lou Pascucci

Published

2 months ago

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The ‘Red Reckoning’ didn’t really ever end up coming to fruition on the court, but man did it sell tickets.

NC State finished in the Top 10 last year in average attendance at 16,341 per game. That number slotted them in at 8 nationally and 3rd in the ACC. That ended up averaging out to about 83% capacity for the season.

Cool, but how does that rank against past seasons?

Well, pretty darn good. In fact, this season was the 3rd highest in average attendance since moving to the new arena in 1999.

The first year in the Lenovo (then called the ESA) was 1999, and the Pack was coming off 3 straight NIT bids under Herb Sendek. The new stadium seems to have created a ‘honeymoon’ effect, since the attendance didn’t really match the team’s performance. They finished averaging 16,535, which still stands as the 2nd best season in avgerage attendance since the move. NC State finished that season 20-14, but didn’t make the NCAA Tournament. They went to the NIT for a fourth straight season.

The best average attendance of all time was the 2015-16 season, where they averaged 16,758. This is a big surprise since this team actually finished 13th in the ACC. The reason you had so many seats sold is likely because the team was coming off of a Sweet 16 run just a season prior, which was the 4th NCAA Tournament appearance in 4 years. That team finished 8th nationally in attendance and broke the previous record we just mentioned.

The other crazy number on this chart is the 11,828 they averaged the season before under Kevin Keatts. If you wonder why the administration was forced to move on from Keatts, this was likely a big reason. Fans stopped coming, and donors stopped giving. In the NIL era, this is the kiss of death.

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