So much for not being able to draw a crowd at an off-campus site.
With light rail accessibility from both the Downtown and Tempe campuses (and free parking for ASU students), Phoenix Muni shouldn't be that hard for ASU baseball fans to reach.
Through 25 games, it hasn't seemed to be an issue. ASU's attendance has increased by 15 percent from 2014 on a per-game basis. Of course it helps that ASU is winning, has an engaging coach, but having a new stadium is a plus as well.
The Sun Devils are 16th in the nation in per-game attendance, while ranking 12th (before Monday's game) in total attendance. In the Pac-12, nobody draws as well as ASU does.
Speaking of that coach, Tracy Smith challenged Phoenix Metropolitan residents to fill up the stadium on Monday in the team's game against Arizona. ASU was going for the sweep. On Saturday, ASU had 6,247 fans (its highest since the 1980s) and Smith's challenge was for 7,000.
Phoenix metro population is 4.3M. I would love to see .00162791% of you show up for tonight's game.
— Tracy Smith (@ASUSkip) April 13, 2015
Except if you actually calculate his Tweet out, it comes to 70 because, as you see, .00162791 percent is actually .0000162791, which multiplied by 4.3 million people, is 70. He was off by two decimals.
But even though Smith didn't get near his goal, it was still a good weekend for ASU. What is ASU's attendance potential? It often takes a few consecutive good seasons to turn fans into believers, but ASU's region of the country may be hurting them.
Reach the sports editor at jmjanss1@asu.edu or follow @jjanssen11 on Twitter
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