Takedown Report

Sanderson sizing up outdoor dual, attendance record

College wrestling’s attendance wars have heated up over the last few years as marquee programs have procured the use of massive venues and have succeeded in packing in thousands of fans.
At this point, no attendance record is safe, especially considering Penn State is eyeing 107,000-plus seat Beaver Stadium for possibly its next big event. Although Cael Sanderson would like to see it happen, Penn State’s coach said this week no plans are currently on the table to put a mat down inside the Nittany Lions’ massive football stadium in similar fashion to Rutgers earlier this season.
“We’ve been talking about that since we got here,” Sanderson said. “But we haven’t really pursued it. It’s always about just making progress and doing a better job and increasing in all areas of the program. So if that means we do an outside dual at some point, I certainly wouldn’t say that’s off the table.” For now, Penn State will settle for the cavernous confines of the Bryce Jordan Center where they’ll face No.10 Lehigh (3-0) on Sunday. It’s been a grand atmosphere for a few seasons now, especially as tickets for Penn State duals at Rec Hall have become harder and harder to come by. Rec Hall seats just over 6,500 and the Nittany Lions have been able to more than double that in each of the four duals at the school’s basketball facility since 2013. More than 28,000 fans combined to attend two BJC duals last season, 15,967 were on hand to watch a dual against Iowa in 2014 and the program set a dual-meet attendance record when 15,996 braved a churning snow storm to attend a dual against Pitt in 2013. The Hawkeyes, however, upped the ante with a dual against Oklahoma State at Kinnick Stadium last season when 42,287 showed up to watch the Hawkeyes edge the Cowboys. Rest of the story at … http://s200.trackwrestling.com/tw/PortalPost.jsp?TIM=1480650195270&twSessionId=wjcoeovbolofcyp&postId=137138076&mc_cid=7ffba32921&mc_eid=2ef7cbca4b

January 1, 2017 - Posted by The TakeDown Report | Uncategorized