GDT: yotes vs Jackrabbits 6pm Frost Arena/Showdown Series Midco/ESPN3

[LetsGoRabbits]

The Cal State Hayward game in 1985 drew over 9300. Would be the second highest attended game.

yes and from everything i have heard the atmosphere there was also unbelievable. i did not mention it specifically, because i was not at frost for that one

i have been at lots of games with over 6k fans and i have many many memories of great games and great crowds at frost but in my memory the 89 Augie game and the Ft Hays regional game were the two best.

probably the next best game as far as the crowd, in my memory, was the regional game where ryan miller and nsu went nuts from the 3 pt line and beat the jacks in a shootout. it was NO DOUBT a great game, but i guess it is obvious why it might not be in my very top frost arena memories

and actually for about a decade the jacks and nsu had an incredible rivalry and my guess is that almost every game in frost topped 6k with more than one over 7k

[LetsGoRabbits]

5500 seems plenty big for me. I’d much rather have it be hard to get tickets for big games than be mostly empty the other 70% of the time. Sellouts create buzz. 3,000 fans is a rare gate these days, outside of 2-3 games (or the final couple of the WNIT).

Also, sacrificing comfort and good sight lines in favor of more seats is really sketchy. Ask NDSU fans how they like those crammed together seats in their refurbished arena.

Given what we see with reported attendance numbers all over the country, I do have to wonder how they counted those crowds of 9000 back in the day. Accurate or not, nobody had the option of turning on Midco in the man cave instead of going in person.

oh yes i am in total agreement with you!! obviously, any more we do not regularly sell frost out even for big rival games. and i agree television is a big reason, probably the biggest one

i think another thing that really did help attendance in the D2 days was the double headers and that would obviously put more butts in the seats today. i understand why they dont do it ticket sales wise, but with the stupidity of mirror scheduling, i think they should probably at least consider it

the other thing, for whatever reason, kids do not go to games like they used to. friday night HS gyms used to be packed all over the country, and in my experience that was definitely the case in SD. it is not the case any longer

i am sure we could could come up with some other reasons and i am probably leaving out something obvious???? and while i probably wish it would be a little bigger than 5500, that will be far more than big enough the huge majority of the time. the biggest thing for me is frost has always felt like the crowd was TOTALLY ON TOP OF THE COURT and it has ALWAYS been a great place to shoot the basketball!!!! i will be very very sad if the new arena loses either of those traits


related note: lots of thoughts about calling it Frost going forward. a common argument is that we readily got used to calling the football stadium DJD and not Coughlin

BIG DIFFERENCE- we had very few truly good football teams play at Coughlin. the 50 years of Frost have been filled with winning teams on both the mens and womens side AND opponents TOTALLY KNOW about and fear FROST arena

i dont think ANY opponent EVER feared Coughlin and those football players probably usually said they played football at SDSU without ever mentioning Coughlin. obviously our Football memories have gotten a lot lot better in the last decade!!

but BBall players surely said they played for SDSU, but if asked WHERE they played their games many would talk about playing their home games at Frost arena and how much that meant to them

[22jack]

Beware of the "Frost" at First Bank & Trust Arena.

[filbert]

It's a different time today than it was in the 80's and 90's. Most games are on tv/streaming and there are a myriad more entertainment options than there were then.

A full 5,000 seat arena is better both in person and on video than a half-full 9-10,000 seat arena.

[LetsGoRabbits]

It is interesting that in the history of Frost Arena, we only cracked 5,000 for a yearly average once 1997-98. The lifetime yearly average is only 3300. The best in D1 was Nate's senior year and it was 3600. 5,500 is probably a good number. With all of the modern amenities, the only way to get more would be to build a new building. I think the idea is to make it like similar to Gonzaga. They have a 6,000 arena and it is full every night.

https://gojacks.com/documents/2022/1...Book_Draft.pdf
Page 61 of the history book.

Interesting you mention Gonzaga. i have said since the second moving to D1 was a real possibility, that Gonzaga was the path we would try to copy

[Justwin]

Interesting you mention Gonzaga. i have said since the second moving to D1 was a real possibility, that Gonzaga was the path we would try to copy

We better plan on cutting all other sports then.

[LetsGoRabbits]

We better plan on cutting all other sports then.

i am sure it goes without saying, THAT IS NOT what i meant))!! (pretty sure you were joking??)

Obviously one of the things that the jacks have been absolutely unbelievable at is developing an entire quality athletic program as opposed to one or two good teams

the jacks have already gotten attention for the combined success of FB, MBB, and WBB
but beyond that, they are successful and putting up winning records in almost all of their other programs also!!

mens and womens XC winning recent conference championships
both T&F teams competing for championships
soccer is dominant
softball is on a dominant run
baseball is making the final four of the conference tournament almost every year
wrestling is succeeding and just getting better
swimming and diving are competitive
who does that leave? equestrian?

sorry to go on, REALLY!!, but this program absolutely does NOT get enough credit or attention for the overall success that they have. and do you remember when the decision to move to D! was made, how many people said it would be the death of athletics at SDSU? that held up well))