Monday, March 15, 2010

Numbers To Ponder

Last week I stumbled across a 10-year home attendance report for another league and that set me to wondering how Ivy League home attendance has changed in the past decade or so. Before I get to that, here are some assorted Dartmouth attendance figures drawn from media guides piled on my bookshelf:

Dartmouth Average Home Attendance for selected years (High Game)
2009 – 4,103 (Colgate, 5,073)
1996 – 7,196 (Harvard, 10,119)
1986 – 8,762 (Harvard, 15,618)
1980 – 12,725 (Harvard, 20,400)

That got me wondering the last time Dartmouth played before a five-figure crowd at Memorial Field. Here's a list of the top-drawing home games each fall dating back to that most recent five-figure crowd:

2009 – 5,073 vs. Colgate
2008 – 7,411 vs. Yale
2007 – 8,720 vs. Columbia
2006 – 7,414 vs. Yale
2005 – 6,710 vs. Penn
2004 – 6,109 vs. Yale
2003 – 8,125 vs. Columbia
2002 – 8,102 vs. Harvard
2001 – 7,020 vs. Columbia
2000 – 9,028 vs. Harvard
1999 – 8,023 vs. Cornell
1998 – 12,017 vs. Yale (Oct. 17)

Which brings us all the way around to the annual home attendance figures for each Ivy League team, dating back to 1998 (click to enlarge as a jpeg):


2009 Dartmouth Home Attendance
Colgate – 5,073
Penn – 3,623
Columbia – 3,816
Cornell – 3,706
Princeton – 4,297

Discuss among yourselves ...

Former linebacker-turned TV celebrity Chris Balish has impressed the writer of Greg In Hollywood now that his new show has debuted. For more on Balish and the show, check out this earlier BGA blog post.

The Cincinnati Enquirer has a story about Dominic Randolph – the Holy Cross quarterback who caused Dartmouth all kinds of problems the past four years – under the headline:

Don't bet against St. Xavier graduate

Former Bombers wide receiver was four-time MVP as Holy Cross QB

Congratulations to former Dartmouth men's hockey assistant Brendan Whittet, who has the Bears in the ECAC semifinals for the first time since 2003 after upsetting Yale in their best-of-three series. The Brown Daily Herald has a story. The Bears will now play No. 9 Cornell Friday.

Likewise, a nod to old friend Sharon Dawley, the former Dartmouth women's basketball assistant now at Vermont. Dawley's Catamounts improved to 26-6 and clinched a berth in the NCAA Tournament by upsetting No. 21 Hartford in the America East finals. Story

In fact, it wasn't exactly a bad weekend to be a UVM fan with the men claiming an NCAA berth, the women doing the same and the men's ice hockey team knotting up winning its Hockey East series with archrival UNH. Story

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