State Boys And Girls Basketball Attendance Not Where It Used To Be

Tuesday, March 28th, 2023 -- 12:35 PM

During the recent WIAA State Boys and Girls Basketball Tournaments, we saw record-setting performances like the 51-point game from Kenosha St. Joseph's junior Eric Kenesie, three-peats by the Pewaukee boys and Notre Dame girls teams, and first-time state champions in the Laconia, Kewaskum, and McDonell Central girls plus the Luther and Newman Catholic boys.  But there weren't as many fans as we have historically seen, in either the boys or girls tournaments.

According to WisSports.net, the boys basketball state attendance did rebound slightly from 2022's historic low attendance. The 2023 tournament drew 64,360 fans in the preliminary WIAA accounting,  up about 10 percent from last year's total number of 58,508 fans.  However, the 2023 total boys basketball state tournament attendance of 64,360 trails the 2019 pre-pandemic total of 83,353 considerably, and that season was one of the lowest in the last three decades. 

A full boys state tournament attendance history is available, click here.

On the girls side, the preliminary three-day total attendance at the Resch Center in Green Bay for the 2023 state tournament was just 27,859.  According to WisSports.net, that represents a 15% decline from the 2022 total of 32,889, which also happened to be the lowest number since the WIAA moved the girls state tournament out of Madison and to the Resch Center in 2013.  It's a near 30% dropoff from the Green Bay-high of 39,966 set in the first season of the tournament at the Resch Center.   

The 2023 total marks a 23% drop from the 2019 pre-pandemic figure and is the lowest girls basketball state tournament attendance since 1978, which was the third year the WIAA sponsored a girls state tourney and featured 16 games with six sessions over three days.

A full girls state tournament attendance history is available, click here.

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