Iowa men’s basketball turnout falls further in 2024-25, tickets scanned data shows

IOWA CITY — Iowa men’s basketball’s issues with attracting fans reached another level in 2024-25.

Fran McCaffery’s program averaged 5,045 tickets scanned in its 18 regular-season games and one exhibition game in 2024-25, according to data obtained by The Gazette via an open records request.

That makes up only 33.6 percent of Carver-Hawkeye Arena’s 14,998-seat capacity.

Those figures are down 12.1 percent from 2023-24, when Iowa men’s basketball averaged 5,742 tickets scanned per game, which equated to 38.3 percent of the arena’s capacity.

Only four 2024-25 men’s basketball games had more than 7,000 tickets scanned — Dec. 12 against Iowa State (10,696), Feb. 8 against Wisconsin (8,929), Jan. 11 against Indiana (7,905) and Feb. 22 against Washington (7,683).

Iowa had fewer than 4,000 fans in the seats for every game in October and November. Those games were against especially feeble foes — Division II-level Minnesota-Duluth and five Division I teams that currently rank 229th or worse in college basketball analytics site KenPom’s rankings.

The average for Iowa’s 10 Big Ten home games was 5,710 tickets scanned — 38.1 percent of Carver-Hawkeye Arena’s capacity. The day of the week was a major factor as Iowa averaged 8,172 tickets scanned during its three Big Ten home games on Saturdays versus 4,655 on all other days during conference play.

These figures differ from Iowa’s official listed attendance, which was 9,161 fans per game. Tickets scanned data measures how many fans actually entered the arena on a given night rather than how many tickets were sold.

Iowa’s tickets scanned data comes with somewhat of a caveat. Iowa women’s basketball had 13,446 tickets scanned against USC — 89.7 percent of the arena’s capacity — which may seem low considering the full appearance of the seating bowl and sky-high resale prices.

But even if 10 percent of fans’ tickets were somehow not getting scanned on a regular basis, 5,600 or 5,700 fans in a nearly 15,000-seat arena still would not be an ideal picture for Iowa men’s basketball.

“There’s work to do certainly,” deputy athletics director Matt Henderson said regarding student engagement during the university’s Presidential Committee on Athletics meeting in February. “We’re not afraid to admit that we got to do some work and roll up our sleeves and figure it out. Because you can see when they’re there, what the environment’s like.”

Women’s basketball numbers also down, but still more than half-full

Iowa women’s basketball did not draw quite the same crowds in the first year following the Caitlin Clark era.

Jan Jensen’s program averaged 9,748 tickets scanned per game, according to data obtained by The Gazette. That makes up about 65 percent of Carver-Hawkeye Arena’s capacity.

That is down 9.6 percent from the 10,779 tickets scanned per game in 2023-24 — Caitlin Clark’s final season with the Hawkeyes.

Iowa’s 2024-25 average rises to 10,071 tickets scanned per game when excluding the Oct. 30 exhibition against Missouri Western. That was the only time in which Carver-Hawkeye Arena was less than half-full for a women’s basketball game in 2024-25.

The Hawkeyes’ official listed attendance average was 14,998 — 100 percent of the arena’s capacity — as they sold out every home game for the second consecutive season.

Iowa’s decreases in fan turnout for men’s and women’s basketball come as athletics director Beth Goetz has her sights set on a major renovation of the 42-year-old arena.

Goetz said in February the renovation “will get done to the extent that we have the ability to fund it” as she has “continued conversations” with some donors. The attempt at renovating the arena comes as Iowa has the added financial pressure of direct revenue-sharing with athletes beginning in 2025-26.

“To be candid, we wish this wasn’t the moment in time that we needed to focus on that project as well,” Goetz told The Gazette. “But this building is a revenue-generator, and it’s also 42 years old.”

Comments: john.steppe@thegazette.com

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