More Attendance Woes - Going to Get worse

I know some don't want to hear about it or pretend it's not happening...so sorry to bring up the attendance issue again...but I have a bad feeling about the two weekday games next week...

Be prepared - now we are reaching the games that historically have a dropoff due to weather, holiday events, people being out of town for Christmas, students gone, band will be fill-ins, and last-but-not-least really, really crappy opponents.
We have Georgia Southern & Mississippi Valley State coming in next week - teams whose names aren't going to cause a rush to the box office....
if the crowds we're seeing now of only 6000 (with 1500-2000 empty seats) are disappointing and start causing finger-pointing, then we'd better get ready for even more finger pointing.

Several other threads suggest reasons for the near record low attendances...
I have read some people who blame the fans and say they've sorta gotten old and don't care..or blame the students....or the younger fans for not appreciating tradition or being fickle...
both of these are ridiculous...it's like any other business trying to increase sales coming out openly and blaming their customers....that sure isn't going to work and make them more appealing!

Then, of course we had the multiple columns in which the press has tried to lay all the blame on people who haven't even been here in 2, 3, and 4 years.
KW's column repeatedly went back to as far as 2007 and tried to claim it was the losses, the scheduling, the personalities, the players, the "issues", etc...
Really?? 

But it is so incredibly easy to blow that argument away because the attendance, the big crowds, the sellouts & 10K+ crowds didn't really all disappear until the past two years!
And how can the highest ranked team in all of history come in to our house and NOT be a sellout???  Close maybe, but still obviously several hundred shy of a sellout.  We used to sell out for DePaul!!
Just a couple years ago - crowds of 11,597 showed up for Michigan State & ISU and there were no empty seats & no-shows!!
Now we're even seeing a NEW benchmark we had also never seen before - on nights that BOTH BU & ISU both play at home, they are outdrawing us!!!  Is anyone noticing all this or are they too busy looking to blame KK or JL?

These mid-December non-conference games are a decent measure by which we can compare the past few years.
Of course back in 2005, 2006, 2007 we were drawing 8,000, 9,000, and even 10,000 for relatively obscure opponents in even some no name non-con games!
In 2008 we drew over 11,000 but that was for VCU - a little better known opponent but it was still well before VCU was a Final Four team.
In 2009 - even really obscure opponents that people generally stay home in droves for such as SEMO & SIUE drew well over 9,000 just the week before Christmas (remember - we're getting just over 6,000 announced but way fewer in reality).

As recently as 2009-2010 we were still drawing 9,000-10,000 for games right this time of year with competition from seasonal events all around town and for opponents as obscure as Western Carolina...

EIU, Jackson State, and Utah just two years ago drew crowds of well over 7000 up to 9000.
But now we see the biggest single-year dropoff in attendances...this year we're seeing consistently over 1000 less at these early season games........ 6300 to 6600 and next week is sure isn't going to get any better.

The problem is getting serious and the fingers are being pointed in the wrong direction.  Our kids, especially the seniors deserve to have the big crowds, the sellouts......we need to make it happen.....