Such has been the state of Georgia Tech basketball in recent seasons that center Daniel Miller said he went largely unrecognized despite being, at 6-foot-11, likely the tallest person on campus.
The inaugural season at McCamish Pavilion, the renovated arena that was once Alexander Memorial Coliseum, has considerably increased the number of students who greet him with “Hey, you’re Daniel Miller.”
“It used to happen maybe once a month,” Miller said earlier this season. “But now, a couple times a day.”
Miller’s on-campus Q rating is just the beginning of the change created by the $50 million arena. The Yellow Jackets, who play their final home game of the regular season Sunday at 6 p.m. against N.C. State, now have a home that has received broad approval from the team and fans. The difference in the athletic department ledger is noticeable, as well.
“Ever since I’ve been here, it hasn’t been anything like that,” Miller said of the fan support. “The season at Philips, it was hard for the students to get there and the crowd to get there. This is great. This is the best I’ve seen ever.”
Ticket sales aren’t the best ever, but they’ve certainly improved. Tech sold about 4,400 season tickets, meeting the goal set prior to the start of the season. The total had dipped to about 3,500 in the 2010-11 season, coach Paul Hewitt’s final season, and also in 2011-12, when Tech played at Philips and Gwinnett arenas during the renovation.
It has meant a corresponding rise in cash flow. Tech has averaged 7,288 in attendance in the 8,600-seat arena and has earned $4,133,000 in total revenue, including ticket sales and contributions to the TECH Fund. That’s a 19.6 percent increase in attendance from 2010-11, the last season for Hewitt and AMC, and a 13.2 percent increase in total revenue.
The attendance is 47.9 percent better than last season with a 100.7 percent improvement in total revenues. The N.C. State game has a chance to be the fourth sellout in 17 dates.
“The attendance has done as well as we could have expected,” said Rick Thorpe, associate athletic director for sales and fan experience. “The support has been fantastic.”
As had been planned, the arena has a different look and feel than Alexander, which was completely gutted and turned into McCamish. Fans have appreciated the closer proximity to the court, the opened concourse and the arena’s theatrical lighting.
“There’s not a bad place to sit in there at all, it seemed like,” said Skyler Davis, a Tech fan from Winder who made two trips to McCamish. With the lighting system, “it’s almost like being at a movie theater.”
In response to a Twitter request seeking feedback on McCamish, fans were largely enthusiastic, but some did have issue with Tech’s longstanding challenges with traffic and parking and also the limited options at concession stands.
There are concerns about student attendance. Through the North Carolina game, Tech averaged 762 students for the 10 games when class has been in session, which accounts for 84.7 percent of the 900 seats allocated for students. However, 45.7 percent of that total attended three games – the opener against Tulane and the Georgia and North Carolina games.
While the 200-seat student section on the sideline has been both filled and boisterous, the 700-seat section in the southwest end zone has often been half-filled by late-arriving students. Athletic departments across the country have been frustrated by low student attendance for both football and basketball.
“I think our students have been pretty darn good, and we need ’em,” Gregory said. “There’s no doubt I’d like to have that student section packed every single game (and) to start almost acting as the leaders of the entire crowd.”
To that end, two Tech freshmen, Jonathan Tierney and Robert Pensa, created “McCamish Maniacs” to help build enthusiasm and support. Pensa said that with Tech playing off campus last year, students “kind of just forgot about the program and they don’t realize that we actually have a really young team. We’re up and coming and we should be good in the future.”
The arena, it appears, has already met that standard.
