Losing good fans

We have a problem currently that we never had...

in almost every year when we had a bad year - finishing in the bottom half of the MVC - we still maintained great attendance...
then if we had a big improvement year (like this year is being called) we had a big rebounding year in attendance - but now we saw the opposite...

we were mediocre and 9-9 in the MVC and still drew nearly 10K in 97-98
we were 14-16 in 99-00 and still drew 10,178
we had a serious downturn that caused MO to get fired in 2001-02 and yet we still drew over 9000
In JL's very first year - not a very good one record-wise - attendance jumped back up significantly
Attendance held strong again in JL's 2nd year even thos fans voiced that they expected better
Attendance jumped again the next tyear even tho we were 6-12 and fans were grumbling
Then BU's attendance surged the next few years and held STRONG until JL's final year - still well over 9,000
only in JL's final season - with changes forced upon JL that were not of his choosing, bad press, and turmoil - only then did attendance decline (NOT back in 2007 as the history revisionists claim) - and yet it was still nearly 8500

BUT now we are seriously beginning to lose lifelong fan support...big time
In the last two years attendance has dropped 10-20% EACH of those two seasons to a dismal 6500 per season this year - numbers simply not seen much since the old Fieldhouse era...
Why in the face of a rebuilding program & "one of the best single year turnarounds" and "one of the top improvements" in all of D-I - WHY did we continue to lose 15-17% of our fan base??
Are you not a bit worried??


in 2011 people predicted precisely what we are seeing - that we'd be at the bottom of the Valley for years, attendance would drop way, way off - and those people were scoffed at and mocked - we they not 100% right?


I am hopeful and always optimistic that maybe we can do better than 9th or 10th seed as we have done the past two years....

BUT - losing about half our offensive production this coming year then losing the last of JL's kids the following year - one of whom will finish in BU's TOP 10 all time scoring list -
add that to the dismissal of almost every recruit that's been signed in the past two years forcing us to start over by landing gobs of leftovers in the LATE spring recruiting period - this does not reassure optimism to me as much as it seems to the media.