RECORD YEAR IN ATTENDANCE
For the past decade, the Lancer following has been building for California Baptist University athletics. The Lancers have seen increases in overall attendance averages since it began tracking attendance for its sports in 2011-12.
This past year, CBU saw a 32.4 percent increase in its average home attendance from 2014-15 (351.26). Over 153 home events, the Lancers drew 71,181 people for an average of 465.24 per event in 2015-16.
When taking away/neutral attendance into account (147 events, 49,387 total attendance), a total of 120,568 people witnessed CBU compete – an average crowd of 401.89 over 300 events. Away/neutral events were not taken into consideration for aquatics, cheer, cross country, golf, track and wrestling since attendance is not taken at opposing schools.
The total home attendance of 71,181 is a single-year record for CBU by nearly 15,000. It updates the previous record of 56,202 set in 2014-15. Its overall attendance of 120,568 is another record after the Lancers hit the six-digit mark (106,560) for the first time in 2014-15.
Since CBU began tracking total attendance in 2011-12, there have been percent increases of 78.97 and 101.73 in total average attendance and average home attendance, respectively.
Several programs drew big numbers and ranked highly in NCAA Division II and the region.
On the NCAA statistical website, CBU baseball ranked 22nd in average attendance, but that was without taking the team’s home playoff games and its neutral-site game at Angel Stadium where it played as the home team in front of a crowd of 7,583. With those factors taken into consideration, Lancer baseball ranked third in all of D-II in average attendance (524.41) and fourth in accumulative attendance (16,781).
Elsewhere in the Division II average attendance rankings, softball took 13th (234) in its sport, men’s volleyball finished 16th (411) out of all Division I-II, women’s volleyball was 19th (503), men’s soccer took 22nd (348) and the women joined the top-30 at No. 26 (291).
There were a number of standouts in a regional ranking that included all PacWest and CCAA teams and UC Riverside. Softball, women’s volleyball, and baseball all took first in that custom ranking.
Women’s basketball ranked first in accumulative attendance (8,205) and second in average attendance out of CBU’s custom regional ranking. Men’s basketball ranked third in accumulative attendance (14,836) and fourth in average attendance (927) in that ranking, as well.