Athletic Trainers Key to Concussion Education and Safety

The Connecticut Association of Athletic Directors will meet March 22-23 in Rocky  Hill.  Among the tenets of the organization's mission statement is a commitment to "disseminate appropriate and pertinent information on national and state athletic issues specific to the administration of high school athletics."   Among the speakers will be former NFL official Jim Tunney, who spent three decades in the NFL, working four Super Bowls and some of the league's best-remembered classics. One of the conference sessions, "Obtaining and Maintaining an Athletic Trainer," takes on greater importance with the increased attention being paid to the ramifications of concussions among  athletes, from youth to pros.  A 2011 studyof U.S. high schools with at least one athletic trainer on staff found that concussions accounted for nearly 15% of all sports-related injuries reported to ATs and which resulted in a loss of at least one day of play.

Connecticut was among the first states to approve concussion education and prevention legislation, in 2010.

CT Tigers Attendance Jumps, Rock Cats Remain Strong

With baseball's spring training approaching, last year's attendance numbers for Connecticut's minor league teams are worth review.  The Connecticut Tigers - playing in Norwich - ranked fourth in all of minor league baseball in improved attendance for the 2011 season, according to a website that tracked professional baseball attendance.  Ballpark Digest reports the Tigers’ attendance for 2011 improved by 20 percent, from an average of 1,485  in the Class A minor league team’s first year in  2010 to 1,780 fans per game last year.  The team's 35 games were played at Thomas J. Dodd Memorial Stadium.  Although the attendance average ranked 11th of 14 teams in the New York-Penn League, the 20 percent increase was by far the league's best. Among 350 affiliated, independent and summer-collegiate teams at all professional levels - attracting a total of 51 million fans during the 2011 baseball season - the New Britain Rock Cats came in strong at number 32, with 363,759 fans attending 62 games during the season.  That's an average of 5,867, up slightly from 5,500 the previous year.

The Bridgeport Bluefish were #158  among all of professional baseball's teams with average attendance of 2,274 (down slightly from 2,471 in 2010); the Connecticut Tigers were #188 and the Danbury Westerners ranked #299.

UConn Misses Down Ratings Year for Bowl Games

2011 was not a good year for college football bowl games on television.  Ratings were down virtually across the board, with some particularly low-rated games even dropping below the 1.6 rating for the 2009 season's PapaJohns.com bowl (UConn 20 South Carolina 7).  The BBVA Compass Bowl, for example, drew its fewest viewers in the game's six-year history with a 1.5 rating for Pittsburgh-SMU. That was down 32 percent from a year ago.  The Birmingham News reports that college football's average 2011-12 bowl rating fell to a new low in the 14-year history of the Bowl Championship Series.  It was a similar story in the stands - average bowl attendance dropped below 51,000 for the first time since 1979.  Twenty-one of 34 bowls tallied by Nielsen ratings attracted fewer viewers than a year ago, including 11 that were down by 20 percent or more. Fighting the trend was the Fiesta Bowl, with Stanford-Oklahoma State achieving a 56-percent increase, marking the largest gain of any bowl from a year ago (2010 Fiesta Bowl:  Oklahoma 48 UConn 20).

Back to the Future

In their final season, the Hartford Whalers 7,601 season ticket sales in 30 days set a major league record in all sports. The Whalers had the highest individual season ticket base in the entire NHL during 1996-97, with overall attendance at 93% capacity.  Average attendance that year was 13,680, exceeding the LA Kings and NY Islanders.  In 2000-01, Carolina Hurricanes average attendance was 13,346.   After peaking in 2006-07, ‘Canes average attendance has dropped each of the past 3 years, and is currently 15,240, The Hurricanes don’t reveal their season ticket numbers, but the 2011 NHL All-Star Game will be in Raleigh and only season ticket holders can purchase tickets, which is helping to increase season ticket sales.