Huntsman Center

Made a big difference when sections A-F (and AA-FF) were the student sections, filled below the concourse for most games, and packed to the top for BYU, UTEP, Wyoming, New Mexico, and others. Compared to now where the band often has more members than the rest of the students.

Red Rocks still pack that place I think they averaged like 15k in 2020.

It is probably in the 11-13k range. May need a polish but it is a fine arena.

Need a team that performs well to draw a crowd and need a good crowd to motivate current players to play well and encourage recruits and potential coaches to come (as well as encouraging NIL $$$$).

Right now team performing poorly, small crowds, virtually zero student support, and limited NIL funds. I fear the decline will continue for some time.

Our fan base doesn’t seem to care about anything other than football anymore. At least half the people on here are more concerned with the football off-season than the basketball regular season from what I can see. Rarely see any mentions of the Red Rocks on here, and they are awesome. I’ll be at every home game in section R regardless of how everyone else feels.

The Huntsman is fine. The place was like a volcano when BYU showed up last season. The problem is the program’s mediocrity over an extended period of time. I can guarantee you that if we had teams of the same quality as when Majerus was in town, then the arena would be full almost every night. At this stage in American society, you can’t expect people to continuously back and buy a bad product. It just isn’t happening for most people.

The HC can’t be saved. At some point it will be razed and replaced in a different location on campus. It will also be a smaller venue.

In terms of support, the student population at Utah is an embarrassment. We have 27,000 undergraduate students and about 30 show up for our first conference game against a pretty good opponent. Even terrible high school programs have better student support than that. I’ll be at the women’s game tonight and we’ll see how many students show up for a ranked vs ranked conference matchup.

The other thing I don’t care for is that our high profile coaches don’t offer much public support to other programs. For example, a couple of years ago Utah softball hosted a super regional vs SDSU. A lot of seats were reserved for administrators and coaches. The lady coaches showed up every game but the mens coaches were nowhere to be seen. You rarely see Kyle Whittingham or a Morgan Scalley at an event.

That place is as loud, as rocking and as lively as they come. It’s the losing that hurts.

It’s always “no good recruit wants to play here because nobody comes to the games, and nobody comes to the games because they aren’t any good…” I’d like to see them try more to get people there . Like what about two free season tickets to football season ticket holders? Or some variation of that. Do something to get people in there.

The long range plan/hope is to build a smaller arena downtown that seats 10-12,000. Huntsman renovation too expensive and the U wants the land for other uses, likely housing.