The Purdue women’s volleyball team earlier this semester took on an interesting marketing campaign to draw the student body to their home games at Holloway Gymnasium.
Rather than using t-shirt cannons and souvenir volleyballs to throw out to people already at the games, they took to the streets and used them to get people to the games. A group of volleyball players cruised around campus building hype for their home Mortar Board Premier event in West Lafayette, where they hosted Oral Roberts, Cleveland State, and Alabama. The marketing worked: They drew more on average 1,868 fans per game, and for the highest-profile of those, a dominating 3-0 (25-21, 25-12, 25-14) win over Alabama, they drew 2,207 fans: effectively a sellout of the 2,288-seat arena.
That 3-game performance ranks them 12th nationally in average home attendance so far this season. Last year, they ranked 9th nationally with 2,537 fans per match (which is, on average, 110% of a sellout) – with attendance always jumping even higher once Big Ten play start. The Big Ten had 7 of the 9 best teams in average home attendance last year, and those numbers spill over to road games as well.
Top 15 teams in 2017 average home attendance so far, through September 7th:
- Nebraska – 8,030
- Hawaii – 6,232
- Wisconsin – 5,841
- Florida – 5,668
- Minnesota – 4,695
- North Dakota – 3,140
- Colorado State – 2,398
- Creighton – 2,129
- Northern Iowa – 1,971
- Iowa State – 1,950
- Texas – 1,924
- Purdue – 1,868
- South Carolina – 1,681
- San Diego – 1,670
- Michigan State – 1,667
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