billsportsmaps.com

December 28, 2010

NCAA Basketball: The Big East Conference – Conference map, with venues, capacities, and 2009-10 average attendances; and teams’ Big East titles and NCAA Tournament histories.

Filed under: NCAA Men's Basketball,NCAA/bk->Big East — admin @ 2:37 pm

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Big East basketball 2011



The map on the map page shows the locations of the schools in the Big East Basketball Conference, as well as the teams’ venue locations (if different than the school location). Three teams have dual venues – one basketball venue on campus, plus a larger basketball venue in a nearby city…those 3 teams are Connecticut (Storrs, CT/Hartford, CT), St. John’s (Queens, NYC, NY/Manhattan, NYC, NY), and Villanova (Villanova, PA/Philadelphia, PA). Two teams play not in the the school’s location, but in an adjacent municipality – DePaul (who are from Chicago, IL, but play in Rosemont, IL), and Seton Hall (whoi are from South Orange, NJ, but play in Newark, NJ). One team, Georgetown, has an on-campus venue (McDonough Arena, capacity 2,5000 – {see this photo (Sports Illustrated.com)} that is basically too small to stage games on a regular basis, and in recent seasons has hosted one game a season. But this season it won’t be hosting a game. I included it in Georgetown’s profile box, but put in a picture of their main venue, the Verizon Center. [It's a shame the McDonough is so small...if it had a capacity of a couple thousand more, it would be a viable venue for more games. I understand the atmosphere there is fantastic. And the problem for Georgetown is that the Verizon Arena is too big - it holds 20,173, and Georgetown averaged 12,040 (granted, that one game in 2009-10 at the McDonough, which drew 2,400, pulled down Georgetown's average attendance a little bit). Playing to six to eight thousand empty seats on a regular basis is not a very ideal situation.]

On the far left of the map page is a table that shows the 2009-10 final standings for Big East Basketball; the winner of the 2010 Big East Tournament (West Virginia); the 5 Big East teams that were in the final AP Basketball Poll, and their rankings; and the 8 teams that qualified for the 2010 NCAA Basketball Tournament, as well as which round they exited in. Again, West Virginia went the furthest, making it to the Final Four, where they lost to the eventual 2010 champions, Duke. Good job to the Mountaineers, and to coach Bob Huggins, who, after revamping the Kansas State program (2006-07), has further rebuilt his reputation after those sordid final days of his Cincinnati stint (ca. 2005, which involved a very public DUI conviction and a protracted contract squabble with the school’s top brass). Huggins, an alumni of West Virginia University, looks to be building a solid program in Morgantown…which will result in only strengthening the already powerful juggernaut that is Big East Basketball. An example of the giant shadow that Big East basketball casts on the sport can be seen in the fact that 8 of the top 20 teams in the all-time list of most appearances in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament come from the Big East…
March Madness all-time appearances list, click on the following…‘NCAA Men’s Division I Tournament bids by school’(en.wikipedi.org)
Big East teams in the All-time top 20 NCAA Basketball Tournament appearances list -
#5 Louisville,with 36 NCAA Basketball Tournament appearances.
#8 Syracuse, w/ 33 NCAA Basketball Tournament appearances.
9 [tied] Villanova, w/ 30 NCAA Basketball Tournament 30 appearances.
#9 [tied] Notre Dame, w/ 30 NCAA Basketball Tournament appearances.
#12 [tied] Connecticut, w/ 28 NCAA Basketball Tournament appearances.
#12 [tied] Marquette, w/ 28 NCAA Basketball Tournament appearances.
#19 [tied] Georgetown, w/26 NCAA Basketball Tournament appearances.
#19 [tied] St. John’s, w/ 26 NCAA Basketball Tournament appearances.

Below that table are 2009-10 Big East Basketball teams’ average attendances and percent capacities. Big East Basketball features some very high-drawing teams, and last season 2 teams – Syracuse and Louisville – were among the top 3 highest drawing NCAA basketball teams in the country (Kentucky drew the highest). 14 of the 16 teams in the Big East were among the top 100 drawing college basketball teams. ’2010 National College Basketball Attendance, [2009-10]‘, from the NCAA.org site, here (pdf file).

One other element to the map is the inclusion of future Big East member TCU [Texas Christian University]. The TCU Horned Frogs will join all Big East sports, including basketball, in 2012.

At the right of the map are profile boxes of all 16 current teams in Big East Basketball. Included are…full name of school; location of main campus, basketball venue(s) (and location if different); year of the school’s establishment; year of the establishment of the school’s varsity basketball team; undergraduate enrollment; Big East Tournament titles (and year of last title); seasons spent in Big East Basketball (and season the school joined the conference, and from where); NCAA Basketball Tournament titles (and year of last title); NCAA Final Four appearances (and year of last Final Four appearance), and total number of NCAA Basketball Tournament appearances (and year of last appearance). Plus I squeezed in each team’s coach, and years he has spent coaching there. Then there is a shot of the interior of the team’s venue (or in the case of those 3 dual-venue-teams, their campus venue), and above the photo, the team’s 2009-10 average attendance is listed. Finally, I had room for just one jersey per team, so I chose the most colorful one…not very, ahem, professional of me, I know, but if I did it by the book and just put in photos of each team’s home whites, it would look a lot more boring, and would not give you a sense of each team’s color scheme. At any rate, many teams do not even offer their white jerseys for sale on the internet, or if they do, I couldn’t find them. In fact, two teams seem to not sell basketball jerseys at all…Providence and Rutgers. I had to assemble an image of these two teams’ jerseys. So anyway, the jerseys all ended up being the teams’ away jerseys, with the exception of Marquette, who feature here their alternate away jersey (a snazzy light blue jersey), and Georgetown, who famously play in home greys. An interesting fact I learned while making this map is that the Georgetown Hoya’s colors were created by the members of their first sports team, the rowing team, in 1876…it was to honor both the Union and Confederate armies – with the Prussian Blue of the Union troops’ gear, and the Cadet Grey of the Confederate troops’ gear {see this}. By the way, some of these jerseys are last season’s version, but what I put there was the most recent that I could find. One final point…those aren’t empty orange seats in the Syracuse Orange/Carrier Dome photo – that’s around 25,000-plus students and fans in orange shirts. Go ‘Cuse!
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Photo credits-
Cincinnati…gobearcats.com/Fifth Third Arena photo gallery, here. Jersey at gobearcats.com.
Connecticut…Dinur Blum at Flickr.com, here. Jersey at Football Fanatics.com.
DePaul…depaulbluedemons.com/Allstate Arena. Jersey at depaulbluedemons.com, here.
Georgetown…Verizon Center photo by Anna Creech [aka eclecticlibrairian] at Flickr.com, here. Jersey, at collegebasketballstore.com, here.
Louisville…KFC Yum! (man what a ridiculous name for a stadium) Arena, from AP, at SI Live.com, here (‘Goodbye Freedom Hall, hello KFC Yum! Center for Louisville basketball’). Jersey, at collegebasketballstore.com, here.
Marquette…Bradley Center photo from Replay Photos.com, here. Jersey from FootballFanatics.com, here.
Pittsburgh…Petersen Events Center photo by crazypaco at en.wikipedia.org, here. Jersey at shoppittpanthers.com, here.

Providence…Dunkin’ Donuts Center photo, Getty Images at Rivals.Yahoo.com, here. Jersey, note: no Providence Friars jerseys available on the internet, therefore I assembled one, thanks to this site (Logosportswear).
Rutgers…Rutgers’ Athletic Center photo, from scarletknights.com. Jersey not available on the internet, and was assembled thanks to this site (Logosportswear).
St. John’s…Carnesecca Arena photo, at redstorm.com/inside athletics/facilities, here. Jersey, at FootballFanatics.com, here.
Seton Hall…Prudential Center photo, from shupirates.com/facilities, here. Jersey, at shupirates.com/store, here.
South Florida…J. Meric at bullsheaven.com; Jersey at bullsheaven.com.
Notre Dame…Joyce Center photo at und.com/facilities, here. Jersey, at und.com/store/cstv.com, here.
Syracuse…Carrier Dome photo from Section 247 Sports Blog.com, here. Jersey, at CBS Sports.com, here.
Villanova…The Pavillion photo, posted by jicharles at ChampionshipSubdivision.com/forums, here. Jersey, at FootballFanatics.com, here.
West Virginia…WVU Coliseum photo from msnsportsnet.com/facilities, here. Jersey, at CNY Discounts.com, here.

Thanks to the contributors to the pages at en.wikipedia.org, ‘Big East Conference‘.

Thanks to Duane Frank (a Notre Dame supporter/ @BigDuaneFrank on Twitter), and the fellas at CollegeHoops.net, including Charles Seymour Jr. (@CollegeHoopers on Twitter), for tweeting {here} about my last college basketball post. CollegeHoops.net can be found on my blogroll.

Thanks to Jeremy at AlbionRoad.com, for info on Georgetown.

December 20, 2010

England: Football League Championship, 2010-11 – Stadia map.

Please note: to see my most recent map-and-post of the English 2nd division, click on the following: category: Eng-2nd level/Championship.
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League Championship Stadia map


Football League Championship table, here (Soccerway.com).
The map page, as is usual with this category of map, shows an aerial or exterior shot of each club’s stadium. Included in each club’s profile box are club info…the year the club was established, location, name of their football ground and it’s capacity, major domestic titles, and seasons spent at this level. ['This level', in this case of course means the 2nd Level of English Football.] At the far right on the map page are the clubs’ locations on the map, and below that are 2009-10 attendance figures (average attendance of home league matches). Also listed is percent change in attendance from 2008-09.

Queens Park Rangers have held the lead since late August, but have now lost two straight matches. They were QPR’s first two defeats of the season, and came a week ago against mid-table Watford, and last weekend, versus Leeds United. There were 29,426 at Elland Road Saturday to see Leeds beat QPR 2-0 (on a brace by 23-year old Ivorian MF Max Gradel), which is a darn good turnout for United, especially when one considers the horrible weather that had descended upon Britain that day. Leeds are now unbeaten in 9 league matches (6 wins and 3 draws), their last defeat was at home versus Cardiff City. Few would have thought Leeds would be in such a good position come Christmas, after that 4-0 drubbing at the hands of the Bluebirds in mid-October. The following article explains what has happened since (basically manager Simon Grayson has got the midfielders and forwards to better support the defenders)…from The Guardian.co.uk/Football League blog, 20 December, 2010, by Richard Rae, ‘Great expectations as Leeds begin to see good times‘.

Clubs have played from 20 to 22 matches at this point in the season. QPR leads with 41 points (and a league-best +22 goal difference) and have a game in hand on second-place Leeds, who are at 38 points. Third are Cardiff City (also with a game in hand) at 37 points/+13 goal difference. The Bluebird’s fellow Welsh club and hated rivals Swansea City sit fourth at 37 points/+9 goal difference. Rounding out the playoff spots are the Canaries of Norwich City in 5th place, at 36 points; and the Sky Blues of Coventry City, who sit sixth and who are at 34 points. Coventry City are perhaps the biggest surprise of the top 6. Coventry are managed by Aidy Boothroyd, who got the job after his strong performance managing League One’s Colchester United to 5th place last season. His reputation was as a purveyor of ugly Route 1 football…hoof it up and smash and grab a goal. That’s how he got Watford into the Premier League 6 seasons ago. This reputation seems to be changing a bit, as he has Coventry City playing a more flowing game.

Back to Leeds United. The squad is playing with assurance under Simon Grayson, and features 3 players that look to have bright futures: Argentinian FW Luciano Becchio, hometown talent MF Jonny Howson, and Glasgow-born (but strangely overlooked as a Scotland international) MF/FW Robert Snodgrass. I think Leeds are going up. If you asked me a week ago, I must confess that my one lock for promotion would be Neil Warnock’s QPR, but that midweek, 3-nil home loss to Watford puts the Hoops in a less flattering light. The criticism about QPR is that if their mercurial wunderkind Adel Taarabt is not ‘on’, the team is not nearly the threat as when the Moroccan midfielder is on all cylinders. At any rate, QPR are a lot easier for the neutral observer to pull for, now that the egregious Flavio Briatore is gone from the QPR ownership ranks. Do you think it’s any coincidence that the now-three-years-on-’richest club in the world’-QPR finally got it’s on-field act together only once that imperious, bimbo groping, micro managing, blue-tinted-sunglasses-wearing, Formula 1 race-fixing sack of lard was forced to step down as chairman and drop his share in the club? There were ten managerial changes in less than 2 1/2 years at Loftus Road when Briatore was running the show.

Here are current average attendances…note: click on ‘Attendance’ which is above the league table, on the far right click here {Soccerway.com}. Cardiff City are the one club in the second tier this season that has seen a significant, more-than-two-thousand-per-game attendance increase…the Bluebirds are pulling in 23,150 this season, which is 2,433 better than last season, when they finished 4th. Of course this increase can be attributed mostly to the fact that this is the first full season that the Bluebirds are playing in their new ground. But Cardiff are doing well, and might finally have it in them to become the first Welsh club to play in the Premier League. Those capacity crowds will certainly energize the Bluebirds in their promotion campaign. The second-best numerical attendance increase is by QPR, who are drawing 1,547 more per game this season than last season. They still are only filling the bandbox that is Loftus Road to just 78% capacity, though, at 14,896 per game.

Last season only one second level club drew higher than Derby County – the en route-to-promotion Newcastle United. Currently, Derby County are the highest-drawing club in the Championship, only this season they are actually decent. They feature one of the league’s top scorers in Kris Commons, a Mansfield, Nottinghamshire-born Scottish international, who has 12 league goals. [That tally is currently second best, behind Cardiff's Jay Bothroyd...photos of the top 8 goal leaders can be seen below.] The funny thing is attendance is down by 3,059 per game at Pride Park, despite the fact that the Rams were in the playoff places prior to their current 4-game losing slump (yet are still just 4 points off the playoff places). The Derby v. Nottingham Forest match has yet to be played, though, so that will fill the place up and push up that average gate.

As Yorkshire’s biggest club, the just-promoted Leeds United would be expected to see attendance increases, and Leeds has the third biggest numerical attendance increase in the league this season, up 1,139 per game. They are drawing the second best in the league this season, currently seeing an average of 25,957 pass their turnstiles. Third best drawing club are perennial capacity-fillers Norwich City. I think they could add 5,000 seats to Carrow Road and the Canaries would still be playing to an above 90% capacity. Rounding out the top five best drawing clubs this season are the aforementioned Cardiff City, then Leicester City. No, I am not going to talk about the charmed Swedish lothario who runs the Foxes these days (well I guess I just did). Incidentally, Leicester’s gates are down, but that can be explained by the fact that their gates were up last season because they had just won promotion, and this season they started out horribly.

Leading scorers in the League Championship…
[Note: Below are leading scorers as of 25th December, 2010/Current leading scorers can be seen here (BBC)]
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Photo credits for leading scorers- Yahoo Sport/PA images; Ross Kinniard/Getty Images at zimbio.com; SkySports.com; BBC/Getty Images. PA at DailyMail.co.uk; unattributed; ThisIsNottinghamshire.co.uk; Independant.co.uk.

Photo credits for map page…
Thanks to the Daily Mail.co.uk (Bristol City/Ashton Gate photo, here).

Thanks to Bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye satellite view [set at Swansea City/Liberty Stadium, here].

Thanks to Colorcoat-online.com (Cardiff city/Cardiff city Stadium photo, here ).

Thanks to Noostairz at Skyscrapercity.com, in the Preston/Deepdale Redvelopment Thread ~May, 2008, for the Preston North End/Deepdale photo, here.

Thanks to Rob Dannatt at WorldStadia.com, for the Doncaster Rovers/Keepmoat Stadium photo, here.

Thanks to Premier Football Books.co.uk (Scunthorpe United/Glanford Park photo, here).

Thanks to the Norwich online newspaper The Pinkun.com (Norwich City/Carrow Road photo [wallpaper, second from bottom, here].

Thanks to SouthBank at the Skyscrapercity.com thread ‘Favorite Small Stadium (-20,000)’, here (Millwall/The Den photo, here).

Thanks to the E-F-S site, for attendance figures.
Thanks to Historical Football Kits site for the kits, historicalkits.co.uk.

December 14, 2010

Turkey: 2010-11 Süper Lig – Stadia map.

Filed under: Football Stadia,Turkey — admin @ 7:55 am

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Turkey 2010-11 stadia




The map page shows stadia and club information for the 18 clubs in the 2010-11 Süper Lig. Reigning Turkish champions are Bursaspor, and 2009-2010 Turkiye Kupasi winners and cup holders are Trabzonspor. At the upper right on the map page is the all-time professional titles list for Turkey. Tied for first place, with 17 titles, are Istanbul’s Galatasaray (last title won in 2008) and Fenerbahçe (last title won in 2007); third with 13 titles are Istanbul’s Besiktas (last title won in 2009); fourth are Trabzon-based Trabzonspor, with 6 titles (last title won in 1984); fifth are Bursa-based Bursaspor.

On Sunday, 16 May 2010, for the fist time in 26 years, a football club from outside Istanbul won the Turkish championship. Bursaspor, known as the Green Crocodiles, are from Bursa, which is about 15 km. south of the Sea of Marmara in north-western Anatolia. Bursa is the fourth-largest city in Turkey, with a population of around 1.8 million {2008 census figures}. Bursaspor were formed in 1963 and first made it into the Turkish first division in 1967-68. Although Burasaspor have spent 42 seasons in the first division, they had never really challenged for the title. Before last season, Bursaspor’s best finish was in 1979-80, when they finished in 4th place, 6 points behind winners Trabzonspor. In fact, Bursaspor were recently relegated, in 2003-04 (they won promotion back to Süper Lig two seasons later, in 2005-06). The fallout from that relegation is still felt in the Turkish football scene, as it created a bitter rivalry between Bursaspor and Besiktas…that is explained in this recent article from the brilliant site European Football Weekends: ‘Turkish eye of the storm, Besiktas 1-0 Bursaspo (05:11:10)‘, by Ulas Gürsat.

Bursaspor has become a club that is able to develop good talent while operating on a budget which is a fraction of those of the Big 3 (of Fenerbahçe, Galatasaray, and Besiktas). Last season, Bursaspor had a budget of around just 5.5 million pounds, versus Fenerbahce’s 65-million pound budget, and Galatasaray’s 41-million pound outlay. The Green Crocodiles squad plays open attacking football under young (41 yrs. old) manager Ertugrul Saglam, who resurrected his career after his stint managing his old club Besiktas in 2007-08, which included a tepid 3rd-place league finish and an embarrassing 8-0 loss to Liverpool in the 2007-08 Champions League Group Stage. Bursaspor had no standout leading scorer in their title run in 2009-10, instead fielding 4 players (shown below) who scored 7 or 8 league goals. And they were able to succeed without their talismanic young phenom, the supporting striker Sercan Yildrim, who was injured for over half of the campaign. Perhaps the other most promising player in the squad is LW/MF Ozan Ípek…’Ozan Ipek – A Turkish box-to-box midfielder with a big future‘, (IMS Scoutng.com).

On the last day of the 2009-10 season, Bursaspor squeaked in for the title, by one point, after they beat Besiktas 2-1, while Fenerbahçe only managed to draw 1-1 with Trabzonspor. Fenerbahçe fans at the Sükrü Saracoglu stadium in Istanbul actually thought their club was set to win the title after the stadium announcer gave the wrong score for the match at Bursa. I bet there were a lot of Galatasaray fans that got a good laugh out of that screw-up. Here is an article from 17th May, from the National Turk.com site, ‘Fenerbahce crushed as Bursa declared Champions of Turkey’.

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photo credits – Turkcell.net for the Bursa Atatürk Stadyumu photo, here.
Bursaspor.org. Medyaspor.com. ManUtd.com. Shaun Botterill/Getty images at Zimbio.com [CL match of Bursa v. Manchester United]. Futbolistan.com. National Turk.com, article ‘ Fenerbahce crushed as Bursa declared Champions of Turkey’ (17 May , 2010)‘.
Teksas.org [Bursaspor fansite].

Census-defined regions of Turkey, see this.

List of cities in Turkey [note: by city population only (no metropolitan-area population included]‘ from en.wikipedia.org.
On the chart below, 2008 census figures are used, and all cities with Turkish top-flight representation are listed in bold…

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This season, there could very well be another champion from outside Istanbul, as Trabzonspor lead by 5 points, with Bursaspor in second place. The north-eastern Anatolian club Trabzonspor come from the pretty small Black Sea coastal city of Trabzon {which has a city population of around 220,000}. 6-time champions Trabzonspor had their glory days in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and the club has not won the title since 1984. It’s starting to look like only 2 of the Big 3 will have a chance for the crown, because Galatasaray are imploding (winning only 1 of their last 6 matches), and they sit 10th, 19 points off the pace. Fenerbahçe sit third, 9 points back. Central Anatolian club Kayserispor are in fourth, 10 points back. Besiktas are fifth, 12 points behind.
Turkish Süper Lig table, here (Soccerway.com).

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Photo credits – internetspor.com. yorumla.net.

Süper Lig will begin its 5-week-long winter break after the matches scheduled for the weekend of 17 to 19 December. The competition will then be at exactly the half-way point, with clubs having played 17 matches. Play will resume starting on 22 January, 2011.

Note: Galatasaray have not yet begun playing in their just-completed, new, 52,000-seat stadium. It looks like they will begin playing there sometime in late January or early Februaury, 2010. Here is a recent thread (posts from the first week in December, and with lots of photos) from Skyscrapercity.com, ‘ISTANBUL – Turk Telecom Arena (52,695)‘.

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Thanks to Mehmet Demircan at World Soccer, June 2010 issue. WorldSoccer.com.
Photo credits
Thanks to the Gaziantepsor official site, for the photo of their stadium, here (Gaziantep Kamil Ocak Stayumu gallery).

Thanks to Kamil Saim, for his photo of the Kader Has Stadium, which is the new municipal stadium in Kayseri, in Central Anatolia. The term municipal stadium doesn’t do this impressive structure justice here. Kamil Saim at Flickr.com.

Thanks to Konyaspor official site, for the photo of their stadium, here (Konya Attatürk Stadi gallery).

Thanks to leopold at Photobucket.com, for the photo of the new Maradan Sports Complex in Atalya, here.

Thanks to Milliyet.com.tr, for the photo of Bucaspor’s Yeni Buca Stadi, here.

Thanks to Fussball Tempel.net, for the Manisa 19 Mayis Stadi photo, here (gallery).

Thanks to Swatreco at the Skyscrapercity.com thread ‘Stadiums in Turkey,’for the Ankara 19 Mayis Stadi photo, here (40% down the page).

Thanks to Turkcell.net (this article), for the Bursa Atatürk Stadyumu photo, here.

Thanks to Nerdennereye.com, for the Sivas 4 Eylül Stadyumu photo, here (Sivas photo gallery).

Thanks to Karabuksporluyuz.com/forum, and contributor bahattinsenturk, for the photo of Yenişehir Stadyumu, here.

Thanks to TFF.org, for the photo of the recently renovated Hüseyin Avmi Aker Stadyumu – Trabzonspor/Hüseyín Avní Aker Stadyumyu.

Thanks to blackbir/dk, for his photo of Istanbul’s Atatürk Olímpíyat Stadi, here (at Flickr.com). Blackbir/dk’s photostream, here.

Thanks to adamsik, for the photo of Kasimpasa’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan Stadi, here.

Thanks to Explore Istanbul.com, for the photo of Besiktas’ Ínönü Stadyumu, here.

Thanks to Skyscrapercity.com contributor www.sercan.de, for the photo (via Flickr.com) of Galatasaray’s Ali Sami Yen Stadi, here. The thread is here, ‘Stadium Aerials’…the page linked to starts with 3 photos of Fenerbahce’s Sükrü Saracoglü Stadi, then 3 photos of Besiktas’ Inönü Stadyumu, then the Galatasaray photo.

Thanks to ZeroZeroFootball.com, for the nighttime photo of Fenerbahçe’s Sükrü Saracoglu Stadyumu, here…[Note: the photo is credited to the WowTurkey.com site, but I could not find the original there. The following links are to the WowTurkey site’s ‘Fenerbahçe Sükrü Saracoglu Stadyumu’ thread, here, with lots of pages full of stadium photos, including shorts from a few years back when the stadium had only 3 sides re-built (~pp.6-9, here), and shots of the exterior lighting display (pp.17-18, here).

Thanks to the contributors to the pages at en.wikipedia.org, ‘Süper Lig‘.

December 7, 2010

NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball – The top 100 drawing teams, 2009-10 season (home games, regular season).

Please note: I have made a more recent College Basketball Attendance Map; click on the following link, NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball – map of the top 100 drawing teams, 2013-14 season (home games, regular season): #1 Syracuse; #2 Kentucky; #3 Louisville.
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NCAA basketball, top 100-drawing teams, 2009-10



2010 College Basketball Attendance‘, [pdf] from NCAA.org.
At the top of the map page are the top eleven drawing teams (all teams which drew over 15,000 per game last season). Included are the teams’ home arenas, and their capacities. Three of these 11 teams played to full capacity…Attendance leaders the Kentucky Wildcats, who played to 102.6% capacity, drawing 24,111 per game to the 23,500-capacity Rupp Arena in Lexington, KY {metro population, around 463,000}. The 6th-highest-drawing Wisconsin Badgers played to 100% capacity at the 17,230-capacity Kohl Center in Madison, WI {metro population, around 561,000). And the ninth-highest-drawing Kansas Jayhawks played to 100.8% capacity at the 16,300-capacity Allen Fieldhouse in Lawrence, KA {metro population, around 116,000}.

There were only three other teams in the list of 100 highest attendances that played to 100% capacity last season…Michigan State, Duke, and Gonzaga. The Michigan State Spartans have now played to 100-percent-capacity at their 14,797-capacity Breslin Center in East Lansing, Michigan for 10 consecutive seasons (since 2000, which was when the Spartans won the second of their 2 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament titles). The 2010 champions Duke Blue Devils once again filled their 9,314-capacity Cameron Indoor Stadium for all their home games, which put them at 53rd-highest-drawing. The perennial March Madness overachievers the Gonzaga Bulldogs are from Spokane, in eastern Washington state, near the Idaho panhandle. They play in a smart and compact 6,000-seat arena called the McCarthey Athletic Center {see this page with interior and exterior shots (Garco Construction Inc. site)}. They were tied for 90th-highest-drawing last season. You just know that arena is an asset for the ‘Zags, because those sell-out crowds make it pretty tough for the visitors. There were a couple teams that drew just below 100% capacity…the 41st-highest-drawing team, south-east Kansas’ Wichita State Shockers (who played to 97.7% capacity), and the Cincinnati, Ohio-based power the Xavier Musketeers, who were the 44th-highest-drawing team last season (playing to 98.8% capacity).

The circles on the map are all centered on the team’s home arena. They are meant to measure the team’s average crowd size, not the area of the team’s fan base. For example, the part of the big red Louisville Cardinals’ circle that swings north into the state of Indiana is not meant to say that folks from that part of Indiana support Louisville…there is certainly a higher percentage of Indiana Hoosiers fans there (except, probably, for the people that live directly across the Ohio River from the city of Louisville, in and around Clarksville, Indiana, which is part of the Greater Louisville metro area). But I decided to stick to circles radiating out equally, instead of making arbitrary oblong circular blobs that conformed to state boundaries. Besides coastal teams, there was only one instance where I had to put the team’s circle outside the team’s point on the map, and that was in another part of the college-basketball-mad Ohio River Valley, in Cincinnati…because the Xavier Musketeers and the Cincinnati Bearcats both play there. So I moved the Cincinnati Bearcats’ circle off the continental US land mass, and connected it with a line to the city, so that both team’s circles could be properly seen. Another instance where two team’s circles were super-imposed was in the state of North Carolina…the 5th highest-drawing, Chapel Hill-based North Carolina Tar Heels are just 11 miles (18 km.) west of Durham, where the aforementioned Duke Blue Devils play. In this case, Duke’s circle was small enough that it fit into the Tar Heel’s circle, so both could be viewed without moving one circle off its point on the map.

Btw, if you are wondering why there is no team from the state of Massachusetts on the map, well, UMass’ glory days are gone (they only draw around 3,900 these days), Boston College had a poor season (15-16 record), and they drew just 5,317 per game last season, meaning they just missed being in the top 100, and Holy Cross just doesn’t draw so well (less than 2,200). And, over on the west coast, what about USC ? That’s another instance of an off-year resulting in poor crowds. USC were 16-14, and only drew 5,016 per game. UCLA also does not draw so well. For the all-time most successful men’s college basketball program (11 titles, last in 1995), UCLA’s 8,081 per game last season is nothing other than an embarrassment. The jaded LA sports fan can’t be bothered.

Here are the 5 teams that just missed being on the map (#s 101-105)…Boston College, who averaged 5,317 per game; Weber State [Ogden, Utah], who averaged 5,310 per game; Wright State [Dayton, Ohio], who averaged 5,277 per game; Rutgers [Piscataway, New Jersey], who averaged 5,236 per game; Rhode Island [Kingston, RI], who averaged 5,227 per game.

You can see all Division I teams’ average attendances, with teams listed alphabetically, at the bottom of the pdf {again, here}.

Thanks to CBS Sports/College BK, here.
Thanks to Sports-Logos-Screensavers.com, for some of the logos, here.

December 1, 2010

Scotland, 2010-11 Scottish Premier League – Stadia map.

Filed under: Football Stadia,Scotland — admin @ 10:01 am

scotland_2010-11_stadia-map_post_c.gif
Scotland, 2010-11




Scottish council areas are listed for each club’s home city or town. Scottish Council areas map, here. ‘List of towns and cities in Scotland by population‘ (en.wikipedia.org). This next map shows populations densities in Scotland, here. You can see the heavy concentration of population in Glasgow, Edinburgh, and the Central Belt that connects the two cities. 8 of the 12 clubs in the 2010-11 Scottish Premier League are from this belt, and around 20 of the 24 highest-drawing clubs in Scotland are in the belt {see my map from last season, here, which shows all clubs (24) that drew over 1,000 per game in 2008-09)

Attendances on the map page are for home league matches, 2009-10 season. Attendance was down at 9 of the 12 clubs last season, with only then-promoted St. Johnstone seeing a significant upswing (from 3,516 to 4,717 per game). Kilmarnock saw a modest +4.6% gate increase (of 245 per game), to 5,972, but that’s still well below their past-decade high of 9,422 per game in 1999-2000. This season {2010-11 attendances at E-F-S site, here}, Celtic is currently seeing around a 4,400 per game turnstile increase, to 49,000 or so per game, but still far below their modern era high of 59,353 per game, in 2000-01. All through the decade of the 2000s, Celtic was outdrawing Rangers, often by a 10,000 per game margin. But in the latter half of the 1990s, Rangers were drawing around 49,000 to Celtic’s 48,000. So last season was the first time since the late 1990s that Rangers outdrew Celtic. The basic reason is Rangers’ 2 straight Scottish titles, and Celtic’s two consecutive seasons without a major title. Hibernian has an exciting and improving squad (but are faltering this season, in the bottom half of the table), and have a new stand (the East Stand), and gates have increased. Hibs are pulling in around 13,000 per game this season, which is around 1,200 higher than their 2009-10 gate figures. Inverness Caley Thistle, promoted back this season, for their sixth season in the Scottish top flight, have seen crowds at 5,000, and that is equal to their best (which was 5,061 per game in their second season in the first tier and their first full season in their renovated stadium). Their Caledonian Stadium is right on the shore of the Moray Firth, and seats just over 7,000. Inverness are one of four clubs in the Scottish Premier League with a ground smaller than 10,000 capacity, and one of 8 clubs in the league with a ground smaller than 20,000. And when you factor in the giant capacities of Celtic Park (cap. 60,832) and Ibrox (cap. 51,082), and the crowds that the two Old Firm clubs pull in, you can see why the Scottish Premier League is one of the most lopsided and competitively unbalanced football leagues in the world. In the 1980s, there was hope that Dundee United (1983 title) and Aberdeen could break the monopoly of the Old Firm (until Alex Ferguson left Aberdeen to manage Manchester United, after he had led Aberdeen to a European Cup Winners’ Cup title in 1983, then back-to-back Scottish titles in 1984 and 1985); and in the early 2000s, Hearts looked like they could muscle in (until their owner went nuts, doing things like firing George Burley after he had Hearts start the 2005-06 season with 8 straight wins). These days no one talks of who could have even a ghost of a chance to wrest the title from Rangers or Celtic. It’s been 25 seasons straight that the title has been in the hands of the Old Firm, and the fact that Rangers or Celtic will win the title is a done deal from the get-go. And crowds are way down compared to a decade ago. Last season, the Scottish Premier League averaged, as a whole, 13,920 per game. In 1999-2000, the Scottish Premier League averaged 17,901 per game. That’s a drop-off of 3,981 per game.
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Thanks to Bing.com/maps/Bird’s Eye satellite view, (set at Inverness Caley Thistle’s Caledonian Stadium, here).

Thanks to Perthshire Picture Agency, www.ppapix.co.uk, for St. Johstone/McDiarmid Park photo, here.

Thanks to Hibs fan Disco Dave Barlow for the Hearts/Tynecastle aerial photo, here.
Disco Dave Barlow’s photostream at Flickr.com, here.

Thanks to MJM Architect, for the St. Mirren/St. Mirren Park photo, here.

Thanks to www.Glasgow2014.com, for this stunning, giant photo of Celtic Park [it might take a little while to download], here.

Thanks to Football-Pictures.net, for the photo of Rangers’ Ibrox, here.

The next photo came from a site I couldn’t access (I did a screen shot of the Google Image search page for ‘fir park stadium motherwell’), 24th image, here.

Thanks to RSSSF.com, for all-time table in Scotland, here.

Thanks to E-F-S site, for attendance figures, here.

Thanks to Demis.nl, for the base map. Demis Web Map Server.

Thanks to the contributors to the pages at en.wikipedia.org, 2010-11 Scottish Premier League.

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