ETSU Passes Scheduling 101
Bucs can’t be concerned about when other teams play, only what makes the most sense for them.
Some teams live in the shadow of others. The New York Jets to the Giants, for instance.
But it often seems ETSU lives not in the shadow of, but subservience to Tennessee in the Tri-Cities.
Conventional wisdom would say it’s because of the level of play. But while the Southeastern Conference is more prestigious than the Southern, both universities play on a Division I level.
For every 59–3 football victory, there’s ETSU taking two of three baseball games from the Vols last season or Rick Barnes saying he won’t return to Johnson City to play the Buccaneers in men’s basketball.
As such, there’s been a philosophy ETSU should not schedule games at the same time Tennessee plays.
That’s not living in the shadow. That’s subservience.
But a program cannot thrive by hoping to capture fans who only want to go to their game if they can’t watch another team.
So Saturday night was perhaps the most positive indication ETSU has established their own identity as a sports program- or at least as a basketball program.
At 2 p.m. the Tennessee Volunteers tipped off against Kentucky in Knoxville. Two Top 10 teams and the chance for the Vols to redeem their earlier 17-point loss at Kentucky that ended Tennessee’s month-long stint at the top of the Associated Press college basketball poll.
At 4 p.m. ETSU tipped off against Western Carolina in a game that meant very little.
And with Freedom Hall’s desolate location, nobody was going to watch the Tennessee game at a bar and then mosey in to Freedom Hall at the conclusion of Vols-Wildcats.
There was a decision local basketball fans had to make. Stay at home for free and watch the Vols in an important game or pay money to see the meaningless ETSU game.
Five thousand, five hundred twenty people decided to do the latter.
ETSU has been known in the past to put out attendance figures that are dubious at best. Sellout crowds were consistently reported this football season when the eye test repeatedly saw empty seats on the visitors’ sideline. Yes, there can be no-shows, but wouldn’t presold season tickets and corporate sales likely to become no-shows be on the ETSU sideline?
But the crowd at Freedom Hall was legit. The place seats 6,100 for basketball and even the undesirable sections seemed to well populated.
The final game at Kermit Tipton Stadium in 2016 had only 549 fans in the stands when J.J. Jerman kicked his winning field goal to give ETSU a 15–14 victory against playoff- bound Samford. The announced crowd was 5,752.
That game was played at the same time Tennessee was on CBS playing against Missouri. It was also the first cold day of the fall and confirmed the playing the first two seasons of ETSU football’s revival solely at Tipton Stadium was a mistake.
But the lesson learned there was not so much fans stayed away because of a game on television, but rather because of the weather. Note how November ETSU games now start in the afternoon, whereas early season games tend to be at night.
And that was reinforced on Saturday night. ETSU could have changed the time of the game against Western Carolina so as not to compete with the Vols to try and advance a walk-up gate.
But they didn’t, and instead drew more fans than any other home game this season except Wofford and UNCG.
That’s a positive sign. It says that a great number of fans in the Tri-Cities would rather support a successful home team instead of hike their skirts for Knoxville.
A much needed change in a community searching for an identity.
Marky Billson hosts a sports talk show in the Tri-Cities, TN area. Watch him live 12–2 p.m. ET weekdays or archived here.
