How many fans turned out for Iowa women’s, men’s basketball games in 2023-24

IOWA CITY — Basketball turnout at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in 2023-24 was a tale of two teams.

Game-by game numbers: Iowa men’s basketball tickets scanned in 2024-24

Iowa men’s basketball averaged 5,742 fans per game over the course of the 2023-24 season, according to tickets scanned data obtained by The Gazette via a public records request.

Game-by game numbers: Iowa women’s basketball tickets scanned in 2024-24

Iowa women’s basketball nearly doubled that, averaging 10,779 tickets scanned per game in the regular season. That average jumped to 11,762 when looking exclusively at Big Ten games.

Analysis: What Iowa basketball tickets scanned data means

These figures look at how many fans passed through the Carver-Hawkeye Arena doors (and therefore had tickets scanned) unlike the reported attendance numbers, which are reflective of how many tickets were sold.

Iowa men’s basketball had an average reported attendance of 9,961 — about 66 percent of Carver-Hawkeye Arena’s capacity.

Iowa women’s basketball’s reported attendance average for its 14 regular-season games plus one preseason exhibition at Carver-Hawkeye Arena was 14,998 — 100 percent of the arena’s capacity after selling out the entire season.

Going back to the tickets scanned data, the Hawkeyes’ Oct. 22 exhibition against Clarke University was the only time when Carver-Hawkeye Arena was less than half-full for a women’s basketball game in 2023-24.

Only three women’s basketball non-exhibition games at Carver-Hawkeye Arena — Nov. 6 vs. Fairleigh Dickinson (8,509), Nov. 15 vs. Drake (9,545) and Jan. 13 vs. Indiana (9,522) — were less than two-thirds full, according to the tickets scanned data. (The Indiana game was during a major winter storm, with Johnson County officials asking motorists to stay home to avoid putting “themselves and emergency crews at risk.”)

Iowa men’s basketball, on the other hand, had only three home games with crowds that were more than two-thirds full — Jan. 20 vs. Purdue (10,332), Feb. 17 vs. Wisconsin (10,372) and March 10 vs. Illinois (10,182).

“We’re going to continue to do our best to make sure that we provide an environment that’s going to get them there, so we can support the program as best we can,” Iowa athletics director Beth Goetz said earlier this year regarding the men’s basketball turnout woes.

The large crowds for women’s basketball saw the Caitlin Clark-led Hawkeyes win a program-record 34 games, with the season ending for the second consecutive year at the national championship game.

Iowa men’s basketball was not as fortunate this year, going 19-15 and reaching the second round of the NIT. However, the team had gone to four consecutive NCAA tournaments before 2023-24 — the program’s longest streak since the 1980s — and Fran McCaffery is the program’s all-time winningest coach.

Comments: john.steppe@thegazette.com

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