More students needed to make Rupp intimidating

After just about every game at Rupp Arena, opposing players and coaches tend to address the 24,000 fans and tell them how it’s unlike anything in college basketball.

Sometimes, players admit to gawking a bit before the game. Since it’s happened regularly here since 1976, Lexingtonians can lose sight of how staggering such a gathering is just to watch a 40-minute basketball game. Needless to say, it doesn’t happen everywhere.

But once the game gets going and semi-enochlophobic visitors ground themselves a bit, the Rupp crowd blends in with the rest.

Can’t blame students. UK athletics has had to put a recent cap on attendance at the ticket lotteries, so now “only” 8,000 students can vie for available tickets between three games. The students don’t need anyone to tell them how to make Rupp loud. Problem is, not nearly enough get in to make a difference.

Acoustically, UK fans come in with a handicap against them. Rupp Arena offers nothing more to fans than a giant box to sit in and watch basketball. Unlike most other college arenas in the country, Rupp is totally quirkless. And I suppose it was designed that way; just get more butts in seats than anywhere else.

As a result, it takes record-setting crowds to really get Rupp rocking. And what group of people is most likely to risk its own welfare just to make noise?

Answer: the same group that shows up to a stink-filled Memorial Coliseum on a Monday night, fingers crossed just for one swipe at some of Rupp Arena’s most eminently average seats.

With a built-in disadvantage, Rupp needs all the help it can get to make sure its atmosphere stays daunting once the initial awe wears out.

And the Lexington Center and UK athletics can work together to make it happen. Give more seats to the students.

It doesn’t make sense economically, maybe. And college basketball, like any other sport, is a business. But the powers-that-be should consider adding more student seats—just look at it as a marketing ploy.

With UK—at least this year—the team itself can’t do anything more to inspire fans to file in. If a fan doesn’t want to make the trip to Rupp because he finds this edition of the team uninspiring, he’ll never show up. Rather, fans want to be there to be a part of the moment. Experience something you can’t just watching at home.

Problem is, the Rupp Arena experience isn’t all that special. Might as well just watch at home, especially considering all the trouble it takes just to get in the same room as what seems like just a handful of available (and affordable) tickets.

Right now, UK’s on-the-floor student section, the eRUPPtion Zone, seats 650—about 3 percent of the total attendance. More student seats are available in the lower and upper arenas, but the eRUPPtion Zone is the difference maker.

On the other hand, Duke’s student section—where the infamous Cameron Crazies reside—seats 1,100. For “big games,” students reportedly cram in 1,600 in those 1,100 seats. Cameron Indoor Stadium only seats about 9,300, which means students fill about 17 percent of the arena.

What if 17 percent of Rupp Arena patrons were students on the floor? That would translate to nearly 4,100 students in what would surely become the rowdiest, most-easily abhorred arena section in all of college sports.

And Rupp would be louder than DeMarcus Cousins’ fashion sense. TV cameramen would be assigned entire games just to keep an eye (a lens, I guess) on the students. Slap some high-priced advertisements on the facades of the section, and the Lexington Center and UK just made their money back.

If nothing else, opposing coaches and players wouldn’t be talking about the sheer volume of people after games.

Ears still ringing, they’d have to yell.

James Pennington is a journalism senior. E-mail jpennington@kykernel.com.