University of North Carolina Athletics
Kirschner's Corner
June 21, 1999 | Men's Basketball
February 5, 1999
Anytime the University of North Carolina athletic department, especially the Tar Heel mens basketball program, receives media attention it causes a stir. That's why it is no surprise people are talking about a couple of local stories involving tickets at the Smith Center and crowd noise on the Tar Heel Sports Networks radio broadcasts.
People have mentioned the fact there have been some empty seats at the Smith Center this year. That's correct. There have been games where student attendance at games has been less than capacity and there have also been games where seats in the non-student areas of the lower level have not been used.
To say, however, that it somehow reflects on the level of student or season ticket-holder interest is not accurate. The Tar Heels have played 10 home games this year to an average of more than 18,500 fans per contest. Attendance at six of the 10 games has been in excess of 20,000. The four games in which attendance was less than 20,000 were played under unusual circumstances.
Two of the four games were Preseason NIT games. The NIT did not allow Carolina to provide free admission to students for those games. Students were required to pay for those games and attendance suffered as a result. The other two games in which less than 20,000 fans attended were at the front and back end of the December exam schedule. The December 8th game against Buffalo was played the evening before exams started and the result was poor student attendance and a crowd of just over 14,000. The December 17th game against Louisville tipped off the day after exams concluded and students had departed for the holidays. Nevertheless, more than 17,000 people attended the win over the Cardinals.
Some people are blaming the lack of a full house on a non-existent or poor ticket exchange program. Actually, the Educational Foundation coordinates a successful ticket program that places unused season tickets into the hands of Foundation members who are not able to purchase season tickets. Heres how it works: only 3,000 of the approximately 12,000 members of the Educational Foundation have season tickets in the Smith Center. When a Foundation member/season ticket-holder can not attend a game, he/she is asked to call the Foundation office. A call list is activated to contact other Foundation members to see if they wish to purchase the seats. Unclaimed tickets are ultimately returned to the ticket office for walk-up sales.
For the process to work more efficiently, Educational Foundation members must call the Foundation if they can not attend. If you have eight tickets and only use five or six, please call the Foundation and let the people know there are other Tar Heel supporters who can get into the Smith Center to see their team play.
The second local story that has stirred debate this week is the artificial crowd noise Vilcom experimented with earlier this season. Contrary to popular belief, Vilcom did this without asking the athletic departments opinion and did it in games played at the Smith Center AND at away games. Crowd noise was introduced into the broadcast in games the Tar Heels played at Cameron Indoor Stadium and Reynolds Coliseum. The idea, one that wisely has been scrapped, was to enhance the technological gizmos in the broadcast and make it more like the NFL on Fox TV. Fox has made a lot of money with explosions, high-tech wizardry and enhanced crowd effects. To add this to pre-game and post-game shows is one thing, to do it during the course of play-by-play action was something Vilcom found was not in anyones best interests.
Why this experiment caused such reaction is what interests me. The anti-Carolina factions that exist love the idea that crowd support is so passive at the Smith Center that electronic crowd boosters are necessary. Unfortunately, that rationale doesn't hold water when you understand Vilcom experimented with this at home AND away games, pre-game, in-game and post-game. The Tar Heel crowds are among the most maligned in all of sports. I have attended games in the Smith Center for almost 11 years, and although there have been games in which the fans were not rowdy, I also remember games in which the crowd played a big part in a Carolina victory.
Ask Rick Pitino about the Smith Center crowds. He couldn't even get his team's attention to foul the Tar Heels for more than 20 seconds as the clock wound down at the end of the game because it was so loud. Or ask Sam Cassell, whose infamous quote about the crowd has lingered longer than the fact that the following year the crowd played a role in Carolina's 22-point comeback over those same Seminoles. Or ask any of the national media who were in attendance last February when Antawn Jamison put on a National Player-of-the-Year-like performance in whipping the No. 1 ranked Blue Devils.
The Smith Center can get as loud as any arena in college basketball. Sometimes the fans wait to unleash their passion until the Tar Heels fall behind or make the spectacular play.
ut the bottom line is the crowd noise pumped into Vilcoms broadcasts was fine for the pregame and postgame show, but not for game action. Vilcom tried it, recognized the mistake and moved on. It's time more people do the same. That includes one of the largest papers in the state, which not only felt this warranted a story, but believed it was of enough statewide interest to lay it out on page A-1. There wasn't a single other story in the front section that day that was more important than one about artificial sound?
Often, the media accuses universities of taking athletics too seriously. In the last 10 days, the News and Observer has written front page stories (A-1) on a student-athlete being named the Jerk of the Year in a comic strip poll and another about crowd noise at basketball games. Who is taking what too seriously?
Its college basketball. Lighten up folks and enjoy the GAMES.
