Before a Saturday loss to Missouri, the UCLA men’s basketball team was off to an 8-0 start to open the season. The perfect stretch, which was compiled almost entirely at Pauley Pavilion, marked the best start to a season, record-wise, since coach Ben Howland’s second Final Four team in 2006-2007.
But hardly anyone was there to see it.
In eight home men’s basketball events this season — six regular season games and two exhibitions — no more than 7,000 fans have been in attendance in a building whose capacity is 13,800.
Of course there are overhead costs associated with a building like Pauley Pavilion, but for poorly attended non-conference games, upper-level ticket prices should be lowered. The losses to total men’s basketball ticket sale revenue, or what Director of Ticket Sales Evan Flagg estimated as “5 to 10 percent” of UCLA Athletics’ total annual revenue, would be minuscule in comparison to a loss in program perception from night after night of an empty arena.
While Pauley’s mezzanine level remains sparse, thousands more see it on each televised game on Fox Sports 1, the Pac-12 Networks and ESPN, shaping their opinions of UCLA basketball over the course of a broadcast. According to a report by online ticket broker Vivid Seats, tickets for UCLA men’s basketball home games have the sixth-highest median price in all of college basketball.
The UCLA basketball program differs from the top five in Vivid Seats’ list — Kansas, Kentucky, Duke, Gonzaga and Indiana — for a number of reasons, the most glaring being attendance.
Indiana and Kentucky both ranked in the top five for total collegiate attendance last year, while Gonzaga consistently sells out its 6,000-seat gym. Duke has not hosted a non-sellout game at Cameron Indoor Stadium since 1990, while Kansas held a 197-game sellout streak at the end of last season.
By contrast, in its first year in the $136 million Pauley Pavilion for the 2012-2013 season, UCLA’s attendance ranked 45th.
Of Pauley’s seven home games where 10,000 or more fans attended last year, five occurred in Pac-12 play. In the absence of the new arena allure, crowds are thin for UCLA’s non-conference slate for the second straight year.
For non-conference games excluding a Dec. 28 matchup with Alabama, most mezzanine-level seats have been assigned a single-game face value of $18, $25 or $33 by a committee that includes, among others, Associate Athletic Director for Marketing and Business Development Scott Mitchell, Athletic Director Dan Guerrero and Flagg. Including taxes and fees, the cheapest ticket available for Saturday’s game against Prairie View A&M; costs $21.85.
Families and individuals making the game-night drive to Westwood already give up plenty by facing traffic and inconveniently late start times. Unnecessarily high ticket prices for a slate of weak, non-conference opponents certainly do not help, especially with the variety of attractions in Los Angeles, particularly at the competing Staples Center.
“Los Angeles is a competitive marketplace,” Flagg said of drawing fans. “You have to win and you have to win with style.”
Until that winning tradition and incentives – be it prices or record – to come watch UCLA basketball games are re-established, however, the style of Pauley Pavilion will likely be one of echoes throughout the early season.