As Eastern Maine basketball tournament officials suspected, overall attendance figures for the 2002 games at the Bangor Auditorium were down, but the news wasn’t quite as bad as expected.

The Eastern Maine Class A tourney took the hardest hit with a 13.4 percent drop in attendance, from 18,547 fans in 2001 to 16,057 this year. The Classes B, C, and D tourney figures were much less worrisome as the drop was only .01 percent, or 548 people from last year’s total of 44,714.

“We were down $1,500 from 2001 on the B-C-D tournament. Course, you have to remember that last year we were down $20,000 from the year before. So from last year to this year, it wasn’t nearly as much of a loss,” said tournament director Bill Fletcher.

Fletcher, who said Class A tourney revenue was down $9,000 to $10,000 overall from a year ago, said teams involved in both ends of a double session – like if the Bangor boys and girls are playing back-to-back in a morning, afternoon, or evening session – certainly play a part in lowering gate numbers. That happened three times in the quarterfinals and once in the EM finals with both the Cony of Augusta boys and girls advancing all the way through.

So what’s the most likely cause of the big Class A numbers fall? Many say there’s no need to look any farther than the new divisional, open-tournament format, but Fletcher isn’t so sure.

“It’s hard to say. I don’t know if you can attribute it to the open tournament or not,” he said. “I’m not sure I blame it on the economy either because back a few years ago, the economy was bad and we still had good crowds.

“There’s absolutely no question that not having as many local teams decreased attendance. You didn’t have Lawrence or Brewer there, and they’re both big draws.”

Teams such as Brunswick, Oxford Hills of South Paris, and Mount Ararat of Topsham – which all joined the Eastern Maine ranks this past season – travel far greater distances than established East teams such as Hampden Academy, Bangor, and even Nokomis of Newport or Cony or Skowhegan. That translates into less fan support at games when the travel time between home and game site is two hours or more.

Although Brunswick’s boys were pretty well supported at the majority of their playoff games, a Saturday morning game against Bangor didn’t exactly pack them in. Add in Friday afternoon quarterfinal games involving teams like Skowhegan and Mt. Blue of Farmington, and attendance is low, as Friday’s 1,255 figure from the March 1 quarterfinal doubleheader attests.

The Eastern B-C-D tourney benefited from taking place during February school vacation and having many more local teams involved since fewer fringe teams from central or southern Maine were involved, especially in the Class C and D ranks, where almost every team was from Penobscot, Aroostook, or Washington counties.

Fletcher said he thinks the drops are due to a variety of factors. Although he admitted the new open, divisional format may have an impact, it’s not in the way most people would think.

“I wonder sometimes if the Aroostook and Washington County people, who turn out in such big numbers, are prevented from making any definite plans because of the uncertainty about their team’s tournament chances,” Fletcher said, explaining that some teams don’t clinch berths in Bangor until winning preliminary playoff games two or three games before the tourney quarterfinals start.

“For those who traditionally come down and spend three, four, five days down here, it’s hard for them to make any plans if you don’t know until a couple days before the tournament starts whether their team is going to be in it or not,” Fletcher said.

Super Saturday survey

Here’s an update on last week’s story concerning the proposed “Super Saturday” playoff system in which all three state championship football games would be played at the same facility on the same day.

The earliest it would happen is the fall of 2003, since the University of Maine’s Morse Field – an artificial turf field favored for this type of system – will be in use as Maine hosts New Hampshire on Saturday, Nov. 23, the date for this season’s Classes A, B, and C state games.

With UM’s Morse Field not eligible for consideration, one of Maine’s two other turf fields, Fitzpatrick Stadium in Portland, has been reserved for the Class A state game yet again.

The results of the survey put together by outgoing Maine Principals’ Association football committee chairman Mike Haley showed that officials at 29 schools supported the proposal while 20 were opposed. The coaching tally had 17 in favor and nine opposed.

Andrew Neff can be reached at 990-8205, 1-800-310-8600 or aneff@bangordailynews.net.