This past December, a friend and I went to a Cleveland State basketball game. It was winter break, we were in the general vicinity, and admission was free.
Now, this was an extremely normal college basketball game. Cleveland State fell behind early before ramping up its full-court pressure late in the second half. Its opponent, being a College Basketball Team, turned the ball over approximately 35 consecutive times against the press, ceding the game to the Vikings within minutes.
It was a fast-paced, somewhat entertaining basketball contest between two teams that would eventually tie for first place in the Horizon League. Neither would make the NCAA Tournament. Neither had any future NBA players. There was essentially no media coverage of this game beyond the forgotten archives of ESPN+.
So, you may be asking, Why have I logged back on to this godforsaken blog in September of 2022 to read about Cleveland State’s 90-81 victory over Purdue Fort Wayne on December 30th, 2021?
I mean, you chose to be here. Might as well stick around.
The Wolstein Center, home of the Cleveland State Vikings since 1991, has a capacity of 13,610 for basketball games. According to its Wikipedia page, “it is the largest basketball arena in the Horizon League and the second-largest college basketball arena in Ohio by seating capacity.” Cleveland State does not need an arena this large. Cleveland State does not need an arena half as large as the Wolstein Center.
Even with a large green curtain hiding the far end of the arena from human perception and the upper level of seating roped off, the Wolstein Center could do little to shroud its pitiful attendance from those who voluntarily chose to attend the aforementioned December matchup between the Vikings and Purdue Fort Wayne.
The announced crowd for that game was 617. It felt like an overestimate.
Some may find this number sad. Some may find it embarrassing for a team as competitive as Cleveland State to pull in fewer fans than many high school basketball teams in the area. They are probably correct.
That being said, there is something about the empty arena that can’t be replicated anywhere else.
You can change your seat whenever you please. You can read a book, spread your feet across two rows of seats, people-watch to your heart’s content, or take a nap. The players’ pleads for foul calls echo throughout the cavernous space. The cheerleaders’ free t-shirt tosses are destined to fall directly in your lap. The empty arena is your playground, your oyster, your domain. It is what you want it to be.
If you’re like the man sitting courtside at the Wolstein Center, you can shout “THEY’RE FREE!” as loud as humanly possible every time a Cleveland State player misses a free throw, causing players and fans alike to turn their heads in disbelief.
If you’re like me, you can laugh at this man while still agreeing that yes, free throws are critical to winning basketball games.
The different factions isolated throughout the empty arena can quickly be identified.
Sitting front and center, there are the diehards, attempting to loudly address players by name between grumbles about free throw shooting and AAU culture. This crowd skews (much) older. They’ve been Cleveland State season ticket holders since the Vikes made the Sweet 16 in ‘86, and they want everyone to know. They’d like to think they’re close with all the ushers.
Higher up in the stands, attention focused less on the game and more on the various offerings of the concession stands, are the parents and young children. This group holds the highest likelihood of Doing Other Activities During The Game. Kids staring at iPads or fighting with siblings, parents trying to wrangle kids or making distracted chit chat with other parents, everyone generally aware they're at a basketball game, but no one particularly worried about the entities, events, or outcomes associated with said basketball game. The game is likely a weak effort to do something cheap and fun now that you have kids and can’t take them to a bar. There's also a high probability this group includes many children taking part in some sort of on-court performance at halftime.
Spread across the remainder of the seats are the people with some free time and a vague-to-nonexistent connection to the game being played — a dangerous combination. These are the relative drifters, the wildcards in this broad equation of fans. They have no real reason to be here, yet they chose to be here without outside influence. They may be able to name one player on the home team, but probably not. These are the people who make the empty arena truly communal. You’ll never meet them, but you know them. You don’t know why they’re here, but because they’re here, it feels OK for you to be here, too.
The existing beauty of these vastly different groups is the sense of balance they provide. No one fan has more power than another. If you’re letting yourself become too involved in the game and its outcome, the mom reading a novel behind you will remind you there’s more to life than amateur athletics. If you’re at risk of nodding off (also a perfectly acceptable option!), take a look at the man dressed head-to-toe in Cleveland State gear, sweating profusely by the first media timeout and putting his full vocal power into every shout.
Maybe this game does mean something after all. Maybe there is a point to all this.
Everyone loves to flaunt sold-out crowds. Sure, a raucous student section creates an incredible atmosphere. Packing 100,000-plus fans into a football stadium is tough to top. But these occurrences are the exception, not the norm. There are more than 350 Division 1 basketball arenas. There are 131 FBS football stadiums. What we’ve all been overlooking and undervaluing is what happens across the country every Saturday during football season and virtually every night during basketball season. It’s right in front of us, in the form of empty seats and barren rows of bleachers.
Whether you walk into a venue as one of thousands or as one of dozens, college sports are for the everyman. They’re for the diehards and the new fans and the children and parents and families and lonely souls and people who just happen to end up in the Wolstein Center on a random night in late December.
There’s a place for all of us in the empty arena.