Men vs. Women
No this blog is not to debate on if the current Husker women’s basketball team could beat the men’s team. But its about the popularity of each program. I was lucky enough to go to the Husker women’s basketball game on the 17th (60-50 over Iowa State). I decided I needed to see this team live at least once before the end of the year for many of the reasons as I’ve said in previous blogs. This is a team that needs to be seen, because seasons like this don’t just come around very often. I walked up an hour before tip-off and got a GA seat for $5 bucks. I had no trouble finding a seat in the first row of the C section right behind one of the baskets. For the womens games, GA is above row 19 in the C section on the sidelines and all of the C sections in the corners and behind the baskets.
Wednesday’s game drew just a tad over 10k and honestly I was a bit disappointed at the time. After seeing today’s attendance (12747) it seems that it was the result of the weekday. But what prompted this blog was a comment a lady next to me said during pregame. She asked me how big Devaney was, I said 13500-14000. (Actual capacity 13595) But the lady then said something very interesting. She said “You know its sad, this team is 23-0 (at the time) and we can’t get them on TV, but they follow the men’s team down to Manhattan to broadcast a terrible basketball team.” Not really wanting to get into an argument with her I said, “Well its all about money” And then she said something else, “No, because if it was about money we’d have these girls on TV.” I shrugged my shoulders and let it end there.
Had I continued the conversation with her, I would have posed this question to her: “Think about this, if the men’s team was 23 and 0, ranked #3 in the nation and playing the #3 team in the nation...could you have got a general admission ticket to this game?” “Could you have sat in this seat for the mens game?” “Could you have walked up to the ticket window and bought a $5 ticket an hour before the game?” “Would you have been able to get a ticket even a week before this game?” My point would have been, had the mens team been in the situation that the women are in right now, you couldn’t FIND a ticket because this place would be jammed packed. And here we are, and the arena is only three-fourths full. Why is that?
The Comments
KatW says This is indeed surprising. February 22, 2010 at 12:46pm
This is indeed surprising. For any other sport, Lincoln offices, bars, and shopping malls would be infused with a naphthalene haze of Herbie Husker/Big 8 Championship gear that only feels the warm glow of blazing scoreboards. Maybe Brad Anderson needs to do a better job of emphasizing that while the roads are crappy, the weather is fair at the Devaney.
holy hannah says RE: Men vs. Women February 22, 2010 at 1:21pm
I think it is a reflection of a larger problem. When women do well in school, business, politics, medicine, science, etc they don’t receive the same accolades as their male counterparts. I believe I recently saw that women earn 70% of what men make when they do comparable work.
Jarrodr says Men vs Women February 22, 2010 at 3:51pm
First, congratulations on their amazing season thus far. It’s great to see a husker program excel. But the reason it’s not televised or more people don’t go is due to womens basketball is not as action packed as mens basketball. Their is not as much coverage of womens basketball so there is less chance they will get televised. Anyways basketball is boring anyways. All it is, is “Squeak, Squeak Whistle”