ACC tournament felt impact of recession

While the ACC sold almost 26,000 tickets to this year’s men’s basketball tournament, turnstile reports show that only Friday’s and Saturday’s games brought close to that number of people into the Georgia Dome.

The ACC sold 25,269 ticket books — covering all 11 games — a spokesman said. The conference is reporting an attendance of 26,352 for each day. That number includes staff, corporate sponsors and media.

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Brant Sanderlin/bsanderlin@ajc.com

Empty seats could be found throughout the Georgia Dome for the ACC tournament.

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Turnstile figures from the Georgia World Congress show only half of that amount walked through the Georgia Dome gates for each of Thursday’s two sessions. TV cameras panning the Dome showed rows of empty seats, especially in the upper deck, amid cheering ACC fans.

This is the second time the Georgia Dome has hosted the ACC tournament. But unlike the 2001 tournament, where a record 40,000 ticket books were sold, the economy is in a recession. For the first time in 43 years, the ACC put tickets on sale to the general public after nine of the 12 schools were unable to sell their allotment.

“The huge gorilla in the room is that the economy has sort of fallen off the table,” said Karl Hicks, the ACC’s associate commissioner for basketball.

Attendance was better for the Friday and Saturday matchups — which featured the higher-seeded favorites North Carolina, Duke and Wake Forest. But when Carolina exited the tournament early Saturday afternoon, a lot of frustrated Tar Heel fans went as well.

“Anecdotally, looking around Friday and Saturday, you didn’t see many (empty) seats in the lower level, whereas on Thursday, you did,” Hicks said.

The same held true for Sunday: the 17,845 people at the Dome for the Florida State-Duke final was 14 percent less than the day before, gate numbers from the GWCC show. That number does not include media, staff, corporate sponsors and others related to the event.

“With the economy, people have to pick and choose now,” said Gary Stokan, president of the Atlanta Sports Council. “We’re sort of a microcosm of a macrocosm of what’s going on around the country.”

Stokan, however, said his goals were met. Atlanta will host the ACC tournament again in 2012, and he wants it back on a regular basis after that.

“From our side, we wanted to show that this event was a big event,” he said. “From all indications from the ACC and its athletic directors and coaches that goal was reached.”