Apparently there is a crisis at Crisler Arena: this year’s attendance for Michigan men’s basketball is on track to finish the season at a 25-year low. The per-game average through mid-February was 9,704; Crisler’s capacity is 13,751.

The drop in attendance isn’t surprising to many people; Michigan basketball is in the doldrums. There has been only a brief hope of an NCAA tournament berth under coach Tommy Amaker, and the team frittered away that glimmer of hope with a pile of losses at the end of the season. NIT berths and winning records are glimmering baubles to which Amaker and athletic director Bill Martin point in the hopes of distracting the fan base from the persistent mediocrity of the program, but obviously, it’s not working.

While the decline of fan interest is sad, it is not as disheartening as the apparent bewilderment in the athletic department. An Ann Arbor News article about the declining numbers included this quote:

“In some games, I’ve especially noticed it. You look around and say: ‘That’s not a big crowd for such a big game,'” senior forward Brent Petway said. “I don’t know what we can really do because we started off with a really good record. I don’t know what more we can say to get people to come out.”

Really, the surprise is not that the fans are losing interest, but that Petway doesn’t understand the reason fans weren’t attracted to Michigan’s 12-3 nonconference record. (Hint: the three losses were to the three quality opponents.) This isn’t about saying the right things to draw fans; it’s about doing the right things to draw fans.

Still, that outlook might be understandable coming from one of the players. But later in the article, an athletic marketing employee offered this:

What’s the biggest challenge in selling Michigan basketball?

“Getting people to the nonconference games,” said Clark Riley, who oversees the program’s marketing. “Even people who buy season tickets don’t go to the nonconference games.”

These quotes from Petway and Riley lead one to wonder if they have looked at Michigan’s nonconference schedule. Consider the basketball powerhouses Michigan lured to Crisler Arena this season: Central Connecticut State; Davidson; Wisconsin-Milwaukee; Youngstown State; Maryland-Baltimore County; Wofford; Delaware State.

And Petway and Riley wonder why the fan base doesn’t fill the seats for those games?

At the end of the article, Martin seems to come the closest to grasping a part of the problem:

“A lot of it is a function of who your opponent is,” Martin said. “Our season-ticket base of students and regular-season ticket holders has held up real well. But (attendance) is not where we want it.”

But sadly, that’s not the entire problem. In fact, it’s not even “a lot” of the problem. Without a doubt, fans want to see quality opponents — but they also want to see a quality home team. Where is the quality home team? It doesn’t exist.

Sure, Amaker’s teams have posted winning seasons, but the bulk of the victory feasts have occurred against the aforementioned tissue-soft nonconference schedule. When the team does meet an opponent of any real quality, more often than not, the result is a loss.

The previous and current solution to that problem, it seems, has been to schedule far more Kleenex opponents than quality opponents. That way, the team puts together an ostensibly impressive nonconference record. The problem that Amaker and Martin are discovering is that an impressive nonconference record in that context means almost nothing to the fans, or to anyone else.

To illustrate the problem, let’s go to the movies for a moment. No matter what ancillary attractions a theater throws at the public, a B-movie won’t gross $25 million on any weekend. Nothing changes the fact that the attraction — the movie — simply isn’t that good. Customers come to the theater for the movie; if the movie isn’t good, customers will stop coming. To lure customers, you first need a good movie.

At Crisler, Amaker essentially is providing Michigan fans a B-team: there are flashes of both good and bad play, but the bulk is simply mediocre, with no indications of improvement in the program. That’s a major problem. But in examining the problem of attendance, Martin seems to want to approach it through the issue of the B-, C- and D-team nonconference schedule. And while the schedule is Martin’s bailiwick, tweaking its strength is not the long-term solution to Crisler’s attendance woes.

As athletic director, Martin has to think about more than tweaking the schedule to draw a few fans for a few games. He has to think less about the teams he brings to town and more about the team that stays in town. Fan interest is only briefly stoked by marquee opponents; give the fans their own marquee team, and they’ll fill the seats.

Otherwise, it’s just a bad movie with good popcorn.