South Carolina women's basketball: Gamecocks sell out season tickets in quest to set the all-time attendance record

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For the first time in program history, South Carolina has sold out all of its season tickets. That’s no small feat for the program that has led the nation in attendance for the past decade. Now South Carolina and its FAMs have their eyes on the all-time attendance record.

South Carolina sold 13,046 season tickets ahead of this season. The remaining single-game tickets at Colonial Life Arena, which has an official capacity of 18,000, will go on sale the week of October 14th. 

According to a release from South Carolina:

Single-game tickets for the 2024-25 women’s basketball season will go on sale the week of Oct. 14, beginning with access for Gamecock Club Silver Spur and above beginning at 10 a.m. on Mon., Oct. 14. At 10 a.m. on Wed., Oct. 16, Gamecock Club Full Scholarship and below as well as University of South Carolina faculty and staff will be able to purchase. Single-game tickets will go on sale to the general public via Ticketmaster at 10 a.m. on Fri., Oct. 18.

Interest in women’s basketball is at an all-time high and attendance has followed. Numerous teams have set program records over the past few years. South Carolina has been at the forefront of that surge

Last season, South Carolina had an average attendance of 16,067. It was the second-highest ever, trailing only the 16,565 averaged by the 1998-99 Tennessee Lady Vols.

Some simple arithmetic tells us that they need to distribute an average of 3,520 (a hefty chunk of those will be distributed to students).

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South Carolina has sold out Colonial Life Arena 14 times, with the first coming in 2016. There were two in 2020 and 2023, and then five last season. That included a pair of games the fire marshall apparently skipped: 18,167 against UConn and 18,478 against Georgia. The latter is believed to be the largest crowd to ever attend a basketball game in the state of South Carolina. 

South Carolina has led the nation in attendance every season since 2014-15, when the average attendance was 12,293. The previous record was 14,364 in 2015-16. 

South Carolina’s big crowds began in 2013 with the “Drive for 5” campaign. Launched in September of 2013, South Carolina sought to raise average attendance to 5,000, matching Staley’s uniform number. 

South Carolina was coming off consecutive NCCA tournament appearances and had averaged nearly 4,000 fans per game, good enough for 23rd in the country. A 30% jump for a program that had sold just 2,000 season tickets the season before seemed overly ambitious. 

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Instead, The Gamecocks sold over 4,000 season tickets and average attendance jumped to 6,371, good for tenth in the nation. The watershed moment came in early February.

A hotshot local recruit named after an old Steely Dan album took her official visit on February 2, 2014 against Missouri. The #7 Gamecocks handed out bright yellow t-shirts that said “No place like Home,” a thinly-veiled recruiting pitch to A’ja Wilson. Attendance for that game was 7,828. 

As shocking as that figure was, what was more shocking was that everyone came back. Attendance for the next game was 7,545. Two weeks later, 10,547 watched South Carolina beat Florida to clinch a share of the SEC championship. Then 12,458 came out on a Thursday night to see the Gamecocks receive their SEC championship trophy and finish off an undefeated home schedule.

Aside from the pandemic season, South Carolina has had an attendance of at least 10,000 beginning with a January 2, 2015 game against Auburn, a streak of 139 games.

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