While Midnight Madness seeks to boost attendance at winter season sports games, especially basketball, the annual late-night pep rally has no measurable effect on the number of students at the games. Prospective students visiting for University Day were impressed by the displays of school spirit at the event.
There was a lot of school spirit at the event, according to Ashley Aguas, a prospective student from Laguna Niguel who attended Midnight Madness.
“It’s the kind the atmosphere that I want to go to college; I really appreciate how clean and friendly everyone was here,” Aguas said.
Event is meant to attract prospective students
Hundreds of prospective students attended this year’s Midnight Madness alongside the thousands of attendees who filled the bleachers Sunday night in Chase Gymnasium for the pep rally.
Sports information director Neil Morgan explained the event is strategically planned to simultaneously occur during University Day, so prospective students can have a great experience at Biola.
“Midnight Madness is a special event that really gives potential students a glimpse of what culture of Biola student life is,” Morgan said.
Evan Tan, president of AS, said he was pleased with how pumped up all the students were at the event.
“You really can’t go wrong with this event,” Tan said.
Morgan stated the event is also designed to inspire current students to attend the athletic events, particularly basketball.
“Midnight Madness is tailored towards building up excitement for the men’s and women’s basketball season, primarily,” Morgan said.
Support serves as mental inspiration for student athletes, according to Morgan.
“Having a packed gym always impacts them positively, rather than playing in front of just their parents, or just a couple of local people, or opposing teams’ parents, even,” Morgan said.
Attendance at basketball games greatly varies
Although they are the most popular, men’s basketball games have greatly fluctuating attendance, according to Biola’s athletic statistics webpage.
Sophomore business major Trenton Fleck attended Midnight Madness and Tuesday’s game, the first home game since Midnight Madness. Fleck said he was more pumped up as a result of the rally, but that he was already going to attend the game since he loves basketball.
Many factors influence attendance, and it is hard to isolate the effect of Midnight Madness.
For instance, 2,138 people attended a home game that pitted Biola against chief rival Azusa Pacific University last season on Dec. 7, 2012. However, only 203 attended another home game against Pacific Union College, a small Adventist school in northern California. That game was held Nov. 20, 2012, the first home game after last year’s Midnight Madness.
Nine hundred students attended the Nov. 12 night game against California State University, San Marcos, the first home game after this year’s Midnight Madness, according to Morgan.
“The key contributing factor as far as attendance flow is the opponent,” Morgan said.
Attendees like close games and prefer to avoid wipeout games, Morgan explained.
The timing of games is another variable.
“It depends on the night of the week. If we have a Friday night game, those games tend to be very well attended as opposed to a Tuesday night,” Morgan said.
