Attendance

And, there are far fewer, right?
Wresting matches are on the weekend in most cases, that does give them a date advantage regardless.
Correct. 17 home games for basketball vs 7 home wrestling duals.

However, as the devil’s advocate…

There are 7 home basketball games on a weekend night this year. Wrestling will demolish basketball in total attendance vs those 7 home basketball games. All the wrestling duals will be capacity crowds. Two different beasts.

It sucks, but it is what it is. Carver is the best wrestling venue in the world and Iowa fans tend to be more rabid when it comes to wrestling as opposed to basketball…it doesn’t need help for wrestling. Carver can use a lot of help getting b-ball butts in seats. I think a new venue and incentive for students would be huge. Too bad I’m not the one making those decisions :)
 
Correct. 17 home games for basketball vs 7 home wrestling duals.

However, as the devil’s advocate…

There are 7 home basketball games on a weekend night this year. Wrestling will demolish basketball in total attendance vs those 7 home basketball games. All the wrestling duals will be capacity crowds. Two different beasts.

It sucks, but it is what it is. Carver is the best wrestling venue in the world and Iowa fans tend to be more rabid when it comes to wrestling as opposed to basketball…it doesn’t need help for wrestling. Carver can use a lot of help getting b-ball butts in seats. I think a new venue and incentive for students would be huge. Too bad I’m not the one making those decisions :)
How many of the wrestling duals are televised vs. almost if not all of the basketball games? Not saying wrestling doesn't have a more passionate fanbase, more so just saying there are lots of factors causing the difference.
 
How many of the wrestling duals are televised vs. almost if not all of the basketball games? Not saying wrestling doesn't have a more passionate fanbase, more so just saying there are lots of factors causing the difference.
All home wrestling duals are on BTN except Penn this past Sunday.

Also, all away Iowa B1G duals are on BTN. Iowa and Penn State are the only two teams in the country with all of their conference wrestling duals on national TV.

Iowa also has 2 non cons on BTN national channel, ISU and OK State.
 
Iowa has a substantially larger basketball fan base than wrestling and more people watch basketball than wrestling as a whole, not only in Iowa, but in every state.
 
Iowa has a substantially larger basketball fan base than wrestling and more people watch basketball than wrestling as a whole, not only in Iowa, but in every state.
That may be, but we're talking attendance.

Also...the Penn State dual last year had more TV viewers than any of Iowa's regular season basketball games by a wide margin. Wrestling gets more viewers than a lot of basketball games. Part of it is fewer events no doubt, but I think you're underestimating the popularity and size of wrestling viewership. BTN aren't dummies, there's a reason why Iowa and PSU are the only schools in the nation to get all of their duals nationally televised during prime time.
 
That may be, but we're talking attendance.

Also...the Penn State dual last year had more TV viewers than any of Iowa's regular season basketball games by a wide margin. Wrestling gets more viewers than a lot of basketball games. Part of it is fewer events no doubt, but I think you're underestimating the popularity and size of wrestling viewership. BTN aren't dummies, there's a reason why Iowa and PSU are the only schools in the nation to get all of their duals nationally televised during prime time.

attendance vs eye balls, it's still not even close as far as interests. The B1G conference championship game that Iowa was in drew close to 3.6 million viewers where as the NCAA championship drew less than 700k viewers.

Last years duel between PSU and Iowa drew 363,000 viewers... Iowa hoops will draw that almost every B1G game and they will likely double it for bigger games.

Now, there is no comparison in actual attendance and I wouldn't argue that. But it's not close as far as how many people watch/care/tune in to the two sports. Iowa is one of the biggest draws in college wrestling nationally and is every season, it just pales in comparison to where it ranks as far as people tuning in.
 
The old Field House seated 13k plus. How large was the actual arena area. I'm talking minus the auxiliary parts, the old ROTC area, just the arena itself?

It's tucked between the Hospital, the old Pharmacy building, and several dorms. You're telling me they couldn't build a 10k arena where the Old Capital Mall is?

Williams Fieldhouse at UW Platteville seats about 5-6K and nestles comfortably in the middle of campus, next to the indoor track, the athletic training facilities, and the coaches offices. Heck, some high school gyms hold around 5K these days.
I lived in Madision, WI for a long time, and when I was there, they constructed the Kohl Center. When I heard about the location at first, I didn't think there was space. Sometimes it's amazing what they can shoehorn into an area. A central location, with a "fieldhouse" type environment, would be amazing.
 
I lived in Madision, WI for a long time, and when I was there, they constructed the Kohl Center. When I heard about the location at first, I didn't think there was space. Sometimes it's amazing what they can shoehorn into an area. A central location, with a "fieldhouse" type environment, would be amazing.
Why don't they just modernize the FieldHouse and move student activities to the Ped Mall?
 
Why don't they just modernize the FieldHouse and move student activities to the Ped Mall?
Good points. I don't know. Sometimes it's really expensive to gut and remodel a really old building, perhaps. I actually have no idea if there is any appetite at all to do this, except for folks like us on message boards. Carver doesn't have any huge issues other than possibly being lame at times for men's basketball games. I personally think the crowd has a lot to do with it.
 
I lived in Madision, WI for a long time, and when I was there, they constructed the Kohl Center. When I heard about the location at first, I didn't think there was space. Sometimes it's amazing what they can shoehorn into an area. A central location, with a "fieldhouse" type environment, would be amazing.
Look at their old fieldhouse, which is still adjacent to the Camp Randall south end zone and which is still used for volleyball. That place is no bigger than any building on Iowa’s Pentacrest, yet seats 11k (albeit bleacher seating, which increases capacity)
 
Look at their old fieldhouse, which is still adjacent to the Camp Randall south end zone and which is still used for volleyball. That place is no bigger than any building on Iowa’s Pentacrest, yet seats 11k (albeit bleacher seating, which increases capacity)
Great point. That building doesn't take up much space.
 
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