Fewer fans making The Schott

• Attendance at this year's boys basketball state tournament fell 13 percent from last year.
• Attendance is down 43 percent from its all-time high in 2003.
• The best attended game in 2015 would have been the worst one in 2008.
• The last sellout crowd came in 2007 when Dayton Dunbar beat Upper Sandusky in the D-II title game.

COLUMBUS – LeBron James isn't walking through that door anymore. Neither are the Dieblers, nor O.J. Mayo and Bill Walker, nor David Lighty and Daequan Cook, nor Jared Sullinger and Trey Burke.

Unfortunately for the Ohio High School Athletic Association, neither are as many paying customers.

Attendance at the boys basketball state tournament reached an all-time low since it has moved to Ohio State's Schottenstein Center in 1999. Only 112,070 fans came out for the 12 games, a decrease of more than 17,000 from a year ago and 85,000 fewer than the all-time record set in 2003.

"I think there's an awful lot of reasons why that occurs," OHSAA Commissioner Dan Ross said at the yearly Ohio Prep Sports Writers Association meeting two weeks ago. "We're not the only ones dealing with it. I think every state in the country and the NCAA and the NFL and the NBA deals with it depending on the franchise"

However, the drop off was noticeable this year. Only three games drew more than 10,000 fans, and the Thursday evening Division III semifinal between Cleveland Villa Angela-St. Joseph and Columbus Eastmoor drew a record-low 7,659 fans since games have been played at the Schott. To put the decline in perspective, the worst attended game in 2008 would have been the best attended game just seven years later.

There is no single answer as to why this is.

The LeBron factor

When LeBron James was a freshman at Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary in 2000, an average crowd at the state tournament as 13,058. As his star rose, so did attendance. In 2001, it grew by more than 20,000 overall. For his junior year, a sellout crowd of 18,375 saw Cincinnati Roger Bacon upset his Irish squad 71-63 for the state championship as average attendance increased to 15,411.

With LeBron-mania was reaching its zenith in 2003 in the wake of Hummergate and his brief suspension, attendance reached an all-time high, averaging 16,459. The carryover to the other divisions was clear as folks bought all-tournament books of tickets to see James in his final high school games and used them to watch the rest of the tourney.

With James gone to the NBA, there was a predictable fall of about 20,000 fans over the next four years, but average attendance was still higher than the 13,276 it would take to sell out St. John Arena less than a half-mile away, site of the boys tourney for nearly 40 years prior. It helped that players like Jake and Jon Diebler and future pros like Cook, Mayo, Walker and Lighty were on the court.

The last sellout crowd came in 2007 when Dayton Dunbar beat Upper Sandusky 87-85 for the Division II state title in what was the last high school game for Jon Diebler, Ohio's all-time leading scorer.

From 2008 to 2010, fellow Mr. Basketball's like William Buford, Jared Sullinger and Trey Burke took their teams to state as attendance began to dip from an average of 12,799 to 11,916. In 2011, another drop occurred and for the next three years it would plateau to an average in the mid-10,000 range.

Attendance fell another 13 percent this year and it's down 22 percent since 2010 and 43 percent from the LeBron era.

School factor

Carlton Bragg is going to play at Kansas. His teammate Derek Pardon is going to Northwestern. Yet a record-low came out to watch the potential future college and/or pro stars do their thing in a Thursday night game with Columbus Eastmoor.

A lot of state tournament attendance is based on what each school can bring. Even though VASJ and Eastmoor come from the two most populous cities in the state, that doesn't mean the teams captivated Cleveland and Columbus.

"It looks like they don't bring a whole lot of people. Many of those communities have brought everyone they can bring. They don't have a community. They have a school community," Ross said.

In 2005 Canton McKinley and Mansfield Senior played in a Division I semifinal in front of 17,638. Ten years later suburban Dayton and suburban Columbus schools met for the Division I title and saw 10,664 fans come out. Canton and Mansfield are cities where the school is still central to the community. Huber Heights and Westerville saw support, but not at the same level.

The same holds true at the smaller schools.

"If it's a Friday night in Versailles or Coldwater, you're probably going to go to school and one of the ballgames because that's the activity in town," Ross said. "If it's Friday night in Dublin, you've got all kinds of activities for kids, and I'm not sure they're going to go to the high school game."

And that's the problem the OHSAA is facing in 2015. For more about dwindling attendance, read tomorrow.

Rob McCurdy has attended the boys basketball state tournament since 1983. He can be reached at rmccurdy@gannett.com or 419-521-7241. On Twitter follow @McMotorsport.

* record

— Rob McCurdy