[zaga_fan]

Why pay when you can watch for free.  Streaming world has hurt sporting events a lot.

WYMT has been broadcasting these games on TV and streaming them all online for years, but it hasn't been until the last several years that attendance has gone down.
Some of the biggest gates in the history of the tournament were when Perry and Knott were good while Beverly and Justice were there and they were all streamed online and/or televised.
Breathitt County has BSN streaming everything and I would argue that all the coverage they've given the Bobcats and the rest of that district has improved attendance.
When I was at WYMT we fought this notion a lot because some teams didn't want to be game of the week because they thought it hurt their gate, but we would film the crowd during highlights of non-televised games against the same teams and compare it to when we went for Game of the Week and it was never impacted seriously and most of the time there were more people in the crowd for games we promoted. There were instances when attendance went down significantly during a Game of the Week there was always another contributing factor like snow or a football game with heavy rain.

I've studied this pretty extensively over the years to the point that maybe I will do a formal study sometime if schools will give me access to actual numbers.

As for the WYMT Mountain Classic attendance...
They moved this tournament from January to December partially in hopes of avoiding some All-A conflicts with the 15th Region. December basketball is bad basketball. Teams have barely got the football players in rotation and they are still playing early-season sloppy basketball. And if you look down the list of teams this year the only team it looks like they added to the mix from this move was Betsy Layne.
The best teams just aren't in it this year. They've gone these last several years and haven't had Reed Sheppard a single time. North Laurel and Pikeville should be in this tournament if it is going to be the premiere tournament in EKY. I'm sure they've asked about it and haven't worked it out, but I would have spent money to bring them in. You would sell a few thousand more tickets for people to see a former UK player and maybe sit in the crowd with Jeff Sheppard. 

Rant over.