Attendance varies widely across Summit League programs.
Not every Summit League arena draws the same crowd. Average home attendance among current conference members ranges from 3,351 at the top to 1,117 at the bottom — a gap of more than 2,200 fans per game. Oral Roberts University (ORU) leads the conference by a significant margin. Five programs consistently average above 2,000 fans; four fall below that mark. Understanding this spread is the starting point for any conversation about fan development.
Programs sorted by average home attendance. Gold dashed line shows conference average (2,138). ORU's average reflects the full arc including pre-tournament seasons, the 2021 Sweet 16 surge, peak seasons, and the post-halo normalization through 2025–26.
Winning brings fans — but the relationship is more modest than expected.
Teams entering a home game with a strong winning record draw more fans than teams on a losing streak. Programs in the 81–100% win percentage range average 3,096 fans — more than double the 1,377 average for programs below 20%. The relationship is positive and consistent, but across a full decade the correlation is modest (0.13), suggesting that factors beyond the win-loss record — venue culture, season timing, program identity — play a substantial role in driving attendance.
Win percentage calculated from cumulative record entering each home game. Game 1 of each season excluded (no prior record). N=1,160 home games with win percentage data available.
The later in the season, the larger the crowd.
Summit League fans show up when the stakes are highest. Average home attendance nearly doubles from the opening weeks of the season to the final stretch — rising from 1,729 in games 1–5 to 3,299 in games 26 and beyond. As conference races take shape and postseason implications grow, so does fan engagement. This late-season surge is one of the most consistent and actionable patterns in the data.
2020–21 season excluded due to COVID-19 capacity restrictions. N=1,198 home games across 9 seasons.
COVID-19 collapsed attendance — and the conference has been rebuilding ever since.
The 2020–21 season was played largely without fans, with average home attendance collapsing to just 775 — a 66% decline from the pre-COVID average of 2,302. The recovery story spans multiple seasons and is still unfolding. By 2025–26, the conference averaged 2,211 — a modest but meaningful uptick from the 2024–25 dip to 2,082, suggesting the normalization period may be stabilizing. ORU's dramatic post-tournament surge (2021–22 through 2023–24) drove much of the post-COVID recovery story for the conference as a whole.
2020–21 season operated under COVID-19 capacity restrictions across most Summit League arenas. Gold dashed line shows pre-COVID average (2,302). Navy bars exceed pre-COVID average; light blue bars fall below it; red bar marks the COVID season.
Three factors explain most of the variation in home attendance.
Across a full decade of Summit League home games, three factors consistently shape how many fans show up and their effects can be measured independently of one another.
- 1 Winning matters but it's not everything. Improving a team's win percentage from 40% to 60% adds roughly 147 fans per home game. That's real, but modest, suggesting that marketing, scheduling, and fan engagement play a larger role than wins alone in driving consistent attendance.
- 2 Late-season games draw significantly larger crowds. A home game in week 20 draws approximately 1,273 more fans than opening week, purely from where it falls on the calendar, independent of record. Programs that want to build momentum should plan accordingly.
- 3 COVID cost the conference an estimated 1,306 fans per home game compared to a normal season, confirming what every athletic administrator lived through, now measured precisely against a decade of data.
OLS regression · R²=0.156 · N=1,160 home games · 2016–17 through 2025–26 (excluding 2020–21)