MBB
Bill Battle gives Avery Johnson a tour of the basketball facilities on arrival in Tuscaloosa.
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It wasn't hard to see the drop off.
Not one factor can be blamed for the dip in game-day atmosphere at Alabama basketball games in recent years. Attendance in the 15,000-seat Coleman Coliseum was 10,612, but that number accounts for tickets sold instead of actual witnesses.
Improving that is part of Avery Johnson's plan now that he's the Crimson Tide's new coach.
"I had an opportunity to tour Coleman," Johnson said. "Umm, we have a lot of work to do. We have a lot of work to do in terms of seating. There's a vision I have in mind how I want to get the students involved in the games."
Does that mean moving the student seating, perhaps, to courtside sections along the sidelines of Coleman Coliseum? Johnson smiled.
"We have a plan," he said. "I had a talk with (athletics director Bill) Battle yesterday about some ideas generally about what we're gonna do. Hopefully as time goes on we'll be a little bit more transparent about our plan. But you'll hear about it before we do it."
Season ticket sales are underway with the same seating map used in the past. Both sidelines are occupied by donor seats.
But Johnson's thoughts were formulated in the past year as Johnson followed his son's Texas A&M games. He took note of what worked.
"We have a lot of work to do," Johnson said. "I'm big on fan experience. You've gotta remember, I worked for Mark Cuban, right? I love Mark. I absolutely love him. He taught me so much about fan experience and also with my time with the Spurs."
Johnson played for San Antonio through the middle and late 1990s as part of his 16-year NBA career. In a way, Alabama basketball and San Antonio have some similarities.
"The Spurs were the big, the only professional team in town, and in a smaller market, so Tuscaloosa fits me well," Johnson said. "I have some ideas of fan involvement, fan interaction. We have some work to do. But I think the facilities have gotten some improvements over the years. We're still gonna move it forward."
Alabama attendance averages with national ranking
44. 9,960 in 2008-09 (last year of Mark Gottfried era)
37. 10,945 in 2009-10
35. 10,983 in 2010-11
27. 12,484 in 2011-12
31. 11,159 in 2012-13
35. 10,754 in 2013-14
n/a 10,612 in 2014-15 (does not include NIT game)