There’s a long way to go, but support for Clemson’s baseball team didn’t wane on the opening weekend of what will be a critical season for Monte Lee and his program.
In fact, attendance at Doug Kingsmore Stadium for the Tigers’ sweep of Indiana was among the highest it’s been for an opening series in the last handful of years.
The three-game series drew a total of 15,404 fans with Saturday’s paid attendance of 5,695 being the largest of the weekend. In the last seven years, only the crowds for Clemson’s series against William and Mary to open the 2018 season, which drew 16,179 fans, were collectively larger for an opening weekend.
Home attendance last season was an outlier since it was capped at 1,280 fans for each game (roughly 20% of the stadium’s 6,272-seat capacity) in response to the coronavirus pandemic, making this season the first since 2020 that attendance hasn’t been restricted at Doug Kingsmore Stadium. Friday’s season opener drew a crowd of 5,279 while 4,430 fans attended Sunday’s series finale.
“It’s awesome,” catcher Cooper Ingle said. “Last year, we had I think around 30% capacity in the stadium, which it’s still pretty cool getting into the college atmosphere. When I was in high school, the most we’d get was maybe 800 or 900 for a massive game. It’s really nerve wracking once you first get out there, but seeing 5,000 or 6,000 people in the stands, it’s surreal. It’s a really awesome thing and a great experience to take in.”
That 2020 season, which was eventually canceled because of the pandemic, Clemson had a total attendance of just 13,358 for its opening home series against Liberty. Clemson’s total attendance for Lee’s first home series as the Tigers’ head coach against Maine in 2016 was 14,685. The next year, with Clemson coming off an NCAA Tournament berth in Lee’s debut season, the Tigers drew 15,282 fans for their first three home games against Wright State, a number that continued to climb at the beginning of the ‘18 season.
Yet despite Clemson coming off a fifth-place finish in the ACC’s Atlantic Division and its first losing season in more than six decades, attendance on opening weekend picked back up this year after the recent dropoff, particularly among students early in the series.
According to a breakdown of ticket sales obtained by TCI through the university, 1,103 students attended Friday’s opener. University employees accounted for 66 tickets while 482 single-game tickets were sold for that game. That’s in addition to the roughly 3,000 season tickets bought for each game, according to a team spokesperson.
On Saturday, the number of student identification cards scanned for entry increased to 1,124. School employees accounted for 103 tickets while 911 single-game tickets were sold.
Single-game ticket buyers made up the majority of the non-season tickets for Sunday’s finale (653). Student attendance dwindled to 315 while 42 employee tickets were purchased.
Clemson finished off a sweep of the Hoosiers with a walk-off win in extra innings Sunday, capping a strong weekend for both the team and fans that watched it all unfold in person. The Tigers outscored IU 33-8 in the series, which included a 19-4 rout Saturday.
“Another tremendous crowd here today,” Lee said following Sunday’s game. “It’s just great to have our fans here supporting the guys. Just an outstanding atmosphere, and you could certainly feel the crowd in all of those big moments. And we certainly had a lot of them throughout the course of the game.”
Clemson will continue its eight-game homestand to start the season Tuesday against Lee’s former team, College of Charleston, before hosting Hartford beginning Friday.
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