Kansas City, Mo. — Attendance at Sunday's men's Big 12 championship basketball game was one of the smallest since the enlarged conference began playing tournaments in 1997.
All 19,100 seats at Kemper Arena were sold out for each game of the tournament. But on Sunday, only 11,500 attended the game, largely because there was no local team.
Kansas City shops and restaurant operators did report heavy traffic and strong sales on Friday and Saturday. And Kansas City area casinos like Harrah's and Ameristar also said action was plentiful over the weekend.
Unofficial overall attendance for the four-day tournament was 91,500, according to daily estimates. Last year, attendance hit 108,500 when Iowa State and Oklahoma played in the title game.
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