April 27, 2011

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Just as fans routinely pack Rupp Arena to watch the Wildcats play, Kentucky annually leads the nation in average attendance. The NCAA’s recently compiled attendance figures from this past season reveal that in 2010-11, for the 15th time in 16 years, UK’s average crowd of 23,603 led all of Division I men’s basketball.

It marks the 23rd time in the 35-year history of Rupp Arena that Kentucky has had the top attendance figure. A total of 354,046 fans passed through the turnstiles in downtown Lexington for 15 Wildcat games during the 2010-11 season. Syracuse, with an average crowd of 22,312, was second, followed by Louisville (21,832), North Carolina (19,144) and Tennessee (18,952).

Nationally, 25.1 million attended Division I men’s games last season, an average of 5,025 per game. The Southeastern Conference was third among all conferences in average attendance, drawing 11,187 fans, behind only the Big Ten’s 12,826 average and the Big East’s 11,323 average.