Anderson County had more fans than any other team at the Girls' Sweet Sixteen. (KHSAA Photo)
The attendance numbers were down but all things considered, both the KHSAA Boys’ Sweet 16 and Girls’ Sweet 16 had to be considered a success for numerous reasons. The boys had announced attendance of 47,686 for the four-day tournament that 15 games while the girls drew 21,914 for the same 15 games over four days. Attendance for both tournaments was about 50 percent of what it was pre-COVID in 2019.
Numerous coaches praised the KHSAA for sticking up for athletes during COVID and going to great lengths to make having a state tournament even possible. This year that included single-game sessions each day so cleaning could be done in between games. Games started at 11 a.m, 2 p.m, 5 p.m., and 8 p.m. instead of the traditional two-game sessions.
Fans and coaches I talked to understood the KHSAA was doing the best it could and personally I liked the new format even though I would suspect the traditional format will hopefully return for 2022.
It was no surprise the highest attendance at any girls’ game came in the first round when almost 2,000 fans turned out to watch Anderson County beat Southwestern. The game before, 1,302 fans were there for the South Laurel-Franklin County game.
Anderson County had more fans than any other team in all three games it played in the girls’ tourney.
The biggest boys crowd was 4,346 for a first-round matchup between eventual champion Highlands and Muhlenberg County.
While the KHSAA likely made a small profit off the tournament compared to 2020 when it had almost no revenue after COVID canceled the tournaments, the KHSAA has to be struggling financially because the state tournaments are the big money makers to carry the budget each year.
Hopefully, state government officials will understand that and what the KHSAA has done for high school student-athletes this year and provide some kind of stimulus/assistance for the KHSAA soon.
