Dana Altman press conference about portal, NIL, 2026/27 roster

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Honest question, does anyone feel like fan attendance/involvement got worth after the move from Mac Court to MKA? I know the size of MKA was a huge battle between Knight and Mullens. Mullens wanted a smaller arena that would sell out more often but Uncle Phil wanted an arena big enough to host an NCAA regional, and obviously we know who won that battle. But I wonder if Mullens got his way and if MKA was smaller and sold out more often and if there really was a crowd factor if that would help fan involvement/attendance.


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There are so many small things Mullens could do to improve the aesthetics and gameday atmosphere at MKA but for whatever reasons has yet to do any of them. Simple things like putting up championship banners and retired jerseys, moving where the student sections are located, getting rid of the in-arena DJ/emcee, and changing the lighting or painting walls to not make it so dark and drab are among some of the most common fan suggestions.

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I appreciate Coach Altman coming out with this info and giving us a little insight about what happened. He is nice to take the blame on himself, but the real problem is just lack of interest. Fan attendance has always been a problem, and the program is getting exposed now that they have moved to a conference where sports are like a religion. Maybe full revenue in four years will help, but with attendance near the bottom of the conference, I doubt we are going to see a lot of tournament teams going forward.

Hopefully the reset yields some better results. In a way, it's a fun challenge. There are plenty of lower-level schools that still field decent teams, so improvement at least is doable. I think we should get used to having good players getting plundered by richer schools after a year or two though.

Hate to say it about Oregon fans but many are now kind of bandwagoners with all the other entertainment options available and how easy it is to just turn on the TV instead of actually going to the games. It also doesn't help that the Big Ten schedules conference games so weird compared to the Pac-12 and fans have no real connection/pull to seeing even the top Big Ten teams coming in to MKA. It feels like the only way Altman and Oregon can bring fans back is to somehow start winning even with an entirely new roster that fans no longer know.

[pudgejeff]

I appreciate Coach Altman coming out with this info and giving us a little insight about what happened. He is nice to take the blame on himself, but the real problem is just lack of interest. Fan attendance has always been a problem, and the program is getting exposed now that they have moved to a conference where sports are like a religion. Maybe full revenue in four years will help, but with attendance near the bottom of the conference, I doubt we are going to see a lot of tournament teams going forward.

Hopefully the reset yields some better results. In a way, it's a fun challenge. There are plenty of lower-level schools that still field decent teams, so improvement at least is doable. I think we should get used to having good players getting plundered by richer schools after a year or two though.

Hate to say it about Oregon fans but many are now kind of bandwagoners with all the other entertainment options available and how easy it is to just turn on the TV instead of actually going to the games. It also doesn't help that the Big Ten schedules conference games so weird compared to the Pac-12 and fans have no real connection/pull to seeing even the top Big Ten teams coming in to MKA. It feels like the only way Altman and Oregon can bring fans back is to somehow start winning even with an entirely new roster that fans no longer know.

They priced out a ton of the non bandwagon fans years ago. In came people who could afford it that were just there because Oregon was "hot". Now that has cooled off, most of those people no longer care to attend games. Most people that were priced out have no desire to return, especially at the still exorbitant prices. Older folks who could still afford through all of this, are well, getting older and so fewer and fewer are able to still attend. Young people mostly never got the chance to become fans due to the pricing and we're left with this. It happened in football too, and even with the sustained success there they no longer sell out season tickets, I imagine if they were to have a few mediocre seasons in a row attendance would crumble.

Until tickets come down in price and concessions become remotely reasonable, attendance will likely continue to look like this at basketball games, even if they find success.