Rupp Arena might not have been full Friday night but plenty of young UK fans enjoyed the game. (Vicky Graff Photo)
Kentucky did not have a full Rupp Arena for Big Blue Madness but the crowd was much larger than what it was for the Blue-White Game Friday night when the upper arena was mostly empty. Kentucky coach John Calipari wasn’t amused after the intrasquad scrimmage when he was asked about Rupp Arena not being full.
“How about this? I want to know if anybody in the country could have a scrimmage that you have to buy tickets to, could have that many people. Tell me that school. These weren’t free. You had to pay for the tickets,” Calipari said.
He’s right. I doubt if there is another school that could charge for intrasquad scrimmage tickets and draw 10,000 or more fans like UK does each season (official attendance Friday night was 11,678). Still, the crowd did seem smaller than usual just like it did for Big Blue Madness.
Calipari said the Blue-White attendance backs up his theory that “these people (UK fans) are crazy” with the way they support the Wildcats.
“They come to this, they come to Madness. They’re excited about it,” Calipari said. “I was just in Louisville. Everywhere I’m walking, people are going crazy. They’re so ready for basketball.
“That’s what makes this what it is. I was so happy to walk out and see that many people at an intrasquad scrimmage, what in the world?”
2 Responses
The attendance at the B-W game has been in decline in recent years. This is the lowest published attendance I can find on the UK Atltics webiste. The largest attendance occurred in 2016, over 16,000. Since then, it has been declining each year.
Here is all the data I can find. Nothing on the website for October 2014 B-W game, but starting in 2015 to the present is below.
2015
Officials: John Hampton, Bart Lenox, Brent Hampton
Technical fouls: UK Blue-None. UK White-None.
Attendance: 15007
2016
Officials: Doug Shows, Sean Casey, Bart Lenox
Technical fouls: UK BLUE-None. UK WHITE-None.
Attendance: 16089
2017
Officials: Todd Austin, Will Howard, Jason Baker
Technical fouls: BLUE-None. WHITE-None.
Attendance: 15530
Second highest attendance in school history for Blue/White game.
2018
UK MEN’S BASKETBALL POSTGAME NOTES
BLUE-WHITE GAME
RUPP ARENA | LEXINGTON, KY.
OCT. 21, 2018
ATTENDANCE: 15,377
2019
UK MEN’S BASKETBALL POSTGAME NOTES
BLUE-WHITE GAME
RUPP ARENA | LEXINGTON, KY.
OCT. 18, 2019
ATTENDANCE: 13,574
2020 – COVID
2021
UK MEN’S BASKETBALL POSTGAME NOTES
BLUE-WHITE GAME
RUPP ARENA | LEXINGTON, KY.
OCT. 22, 2021
ATTENDANCE: 11,678
Good numbers Professor to show us that trend. Appreciate that