When asked what he thought about the fans at basketball games, basketball coach and social studies teacher Jeffrey Stohr replied, “Which one?”

According to Patti Alexander, 2012’s box office manager for Meyer Hall, the Meyer Hall Theater seats 591 people. During the five performances of last year’s play “A Midsummer’s Night Dream,” between Nov. 3-6, an average of 550 people attended. At $15 a ticket, or $10 for Dreyfoos students, the production made over $30,000.

In early April, the communications department held the Communications Showcase. According to communications dean Angela Weber, 400 people attended the show. With ticket prices at $10 for adults and $5 for students, $3,200 generated in revenue.

The stands of the Dreyfoos gym seat over 1,200 students. However, for a typical basketball game, Mr. Stohr estimates only 20 fans a game attend, about half of which he says are parents. The ticket price for a basketball game is $5, and admission is free for students. Therefore, a typical basketball game earns approximately $50 in revenue. With eight home games on the schedule for the season, last year the team made $400 over the course of three months.

If students can find the time to attend arts productions, why can’t they attend sporting events as well? It’s not because they don’t have the time, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to attend arts shows either.

“I guess it’s because our school isn’t known for its athletic ability. It’s more known for our artistic ingenuity,” dance senior Elyssa Kelly said. “So with the free time I have I’d rather go to a theatre show than a basketball game.”

Dreyfoos is an arts school. We are known for our artistic ability, but that doesn’t mean we need to limit ourselves to only be successful artists. Suncoast Community High School isn’t known for its athletic prowess either, but it is not limited by its reputation to remain solely a math and science school. Dreyfoos students need to show enthusiasm for the school as a whole.

“[Students] don’t think [the basketball team is] good. They don’t have the school spirit they should have,” said band junior Jorge Ramos, who is a member of the basketball team.

If students don’t want to attend basketball games because they believe the team won’t succeed, then they should show support for the rapidly improving girls volleyball team, or the boys and girls soccer teams, which have had recent successes.

Ms. Weber has a different theory to why the potential fans don’t attend athletic events. She believes that the lack of support for our teams comes from a shortage of advertising for sporting events.

“I never hear about sporting events at our school, maybe the day of, but for arts events we see posters and have announcements about them a week in advance,” Ms. Weber said.“For sporting events kids can’t make plans for the day of. [Students] don’t have a ride, or they already have plans they can’t change. With arts you have the visual aspect of advertising around the school.”

The only sporting event we can compare to the arts shows for how well they were advertised are the dodge ball tournaments. Posters were plastered around the school for weeks in advance, and according to last year’s “A Prom to Remember” president and communications alumna Gabriella Carrera, the events had 400 people attend to participate and watch the tournament each time. Is advertising the answer to Dreyfoos’ fan problem? It is a part of the problem, but it doesn’t account for the thousands more attendees for arts productions than to sporting events.

Students at Dreyfoos do not want to attend games, which stems from the problem that our sports teams are not good. This leads to fans not wanting to go to sporting events, which in turn leads to the problem that there is no incentive for our teams to get better. It is the classic sports “Which came first, chicken or the egg?” question. Do sports teams get good and then fans go to events or do fans go and then the team gets good? I believe the lack of fans at sporting events is caused by teams that have not been good enough in past years to gather support. However, if students begin to take interest in the athletic program at Dreyfoos, they will be rewarded with teams that will start to show promise.