LOOK: Still football season? Rupp Arena has lots of empty seats for Kentucky-North Dakota game
The Kentucky Wildcats are hosting North Dakota on Wednesday night in non-conference play — not exactly the most-exciting matchup.
Add in bad weather in Lexington and a late tipoff and you have the recipe for sparse attendance.
As you can see in the photos below, that’s exactly what happened at Rupp Arena on Wednesday night, as the upper deck was not very full at all:
I’ve been covering UK daily since 1999. I’ve never seen Rupp Arena like this at tip-off for a regular season game. Weather is awful tonight, tip-off is at 9 ET and opponent is North Dakota, but it still takes you aback… pic.twitter.com/vgrTy6v3r4
— Jeff Drummond (@JDrumUK) November 15, 2018
An entire section of lower-arena seats empty… pic.twitter.com/FLJiHKGA04
— Jeff Drummond (@JDrumUK) November 15, 2018
Of course, there’s no attendance problem at Kentucky and this is just a minor blip on the radar, but it is interesting.
Fans clearly don’t like these late tipoffs, but with all the TV money involved, that’s unlikely to change.