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Using Football for Basketball
Published: 2/10/2011 1:37 PM
Last Modified: 2/10/2011 1:37 PM

There were 11,572 fans at Lloyd Noble Center on Wednesday night.
The debate is whether most of them showed up for the basketball game against Texas or to see Sam Bradford.
We’re guessing Bradford was the draw.
Normally, a game of any type against Texas, especially when the Longhorns are ranked among the nation’s top three, would be more than enough to pack a stadium or arena in Norman.
However, OU basketball has been mired in a two-year recession and attendance has dwindled to just a fraction of capacity at Lloyd Noble Center.
But, any question about the popularity of football, and especially a Heisman Trophy winner, were put to rest on Wednesday night.
On the same day that Oklahoma was slammed by another snow storm, and on a night of record low temperatures across the state, there was a near-capacity crowd at the arena.
The reason was simple. Bradford, recently named the NFL offensive rookie-of-the-year, was going to be honored during the game.
Anything to help bring folks to college basketball in our state these days is a good idea.
Using football to get a basketball crowd makes perfect sense to us.



Reader Comments 4 Total
Art Vandelay (2 years ago)
The offering of free tickets helped with the attendance as well...
Imjustsayin (2 years ago)
Plus, Kevin Durant, without regard to which bench he was sitting by, no doubt was something of a draw.
The ORIGINAL Adman (2 years ago)
Isn't that how OU always gets people to bball games?

Where's the story here?

Seems like NO one is going to area college games these days, though.
The Truth Hurts (2 years ago)
Of course John, you forgot to mention that tickets were FREE to anyone that showed up. I'd say that had a TON to do with the crowd. Sure, they were honoring Bradford at half, but its not like he was signing autographs, heck he didn't even take the mic. Thats fine if you and the radio people wanna chuckle and say, yeah, they showed up for Sam, but about 8000 showed up for Baylor on a freaking Wednesday afternoon too...and no Sam either.
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Klein's Korner

Tulsa World senior sports columnist John Klein is in his fourth decade of covering sports. He started his newspaper career at The Daily Ardmoreite in 1977 and moved to the Tulsa World in 1978. He served 10 years as sports editor for the Tulsa World before being named to his current position in 2005. He also spent five years as the Southwest Conference beat writer for the Houston Post. He has won many writing awards and is a former Oklahoma Sports Writer of the Year.

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