Fans who packed into the Stephen C. O’Connell Center this weekend had a little less leg room than usual.
The University Athletic Association surpassed its goal for its Pack the Dome weekend, welcoming more than 26,000 fans into the stadium for four sporting events — about 1,000 spectators more than the campaign’s target attendance.
“It was a big weekend for us,” said Michael Ward, assistant director of marketing for UAA. “It seems like we always have one of these in January, these weekends that are kind of crazy for us as a marketing staff, but definitely events that we love to put on because we love the reaction on the fans’ faces.”
The weekend featured gymnastics on Friday; swimming and diving and men’s basketball on Saturday; and women’s basketball on Sunday.
To draw in crowds, the weekend included several special events and giveaways, such as the annual men’s basketball T-shirt giveaway game and a commemorative drinking glass giveaway at the gymnastics meet.
“I sent an email out to our gameday staff, and it probably had 13 bullet points of all the events we had going on,” Ward said.
He said extensive planning and coordination for months in advance go into making multisport promotions run smoothly.
Austin Pleasants, an 18-year-old UF biomedical engineering freshman, said he went to all four games this weekend. He said he even camped outside overnight for front-row seats at the men’s basketball game. He was at the O’Connell Center for more than 24 hours.
“At the women’s basketball game today, there were a lot of people here, and a lot of them I heard talking about the Pack the Dome event,” he said, “and that’s why it’s pretty crowded today.”
Josh Beychok, an 18-year-old UF economics freshman, said promotions like this give an incentive to fans to attend sports that typically receive less attention.
“It definitely increases my likelihood of going to them, like a gymnastics (meet) or a swimming and diving (event),” he said. “I’d go either way to the basketball games, but for other events, definitely, that plays a part in it.”
[A version of this story ran on page 8 on 1/27/2014 under the headline "Gators fans pile in O’Connell Center for Pack the Dome"]
