UNLIKE planting rice, counting numbers is so much fun. My fascination over statistics has not waned since my academic years. And at an early age, I quickly learned that a 36-24-36 gets more oohs and aahs than a 10-10-10 (a triple-double in basketball).
Until now, the mathematical hormones in my aging body rev up every time there’s a gathering of a sizeable crowd, be it during a sporting event, musical concert, political rally or even a prayer activity.
That’s because trying to guess the estimated number of people in a crowd makes life for a Baby Boomer like me more interesting than solving a crossword puzzle or tinkering with someone’s Flappy Birds.
Crowd estimates at a political rally often vary, depending who does the counting. If you belong to the “pros,” you tend to jack up the figures. On the other hand, if you happen to be among the “antis,” you (re: local and government police) are likely to downgrade the numbers.
Deceit is their game and to ordinary folks like you and me, this could really be confusing. Sometimes the disparity in numbers can be in the hundreds of thousands. Or at times, the figures simply mean nothing.
I still remember the unprecedented turnout of people in the funeral march for martyred Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino from the Santo Domingo Church in Quezon City to his final resting place at the Manila Memorial Park in late August 1983.
That long march was attended by more than two million people. Despite the mammoth crowd, officials and politicians loyal to Ninoy’s bitter political foe, Ferdinand Marcos, downplayed it.
One newspaper controlled by a relative of Marcos’s wife Imelda pooh-poohed the huge turnout of mourners by insultingly highlighting on its front page a picture of a man who was struck by lightning while atop an electric post to witness the march.
For crowds of people that attend events such as concerts or movies indoor, like an auditorium or theater, the number of spectators can easily be estimated, or the exact figure even counted.
Attendance at basketball games can also be determined with great accuracy. Events held in open air, that’s another story. As far as I can recall, the largest local crowds to witness a musical concert that was held in an open-air arena or stadium were those that watched the legendary Beatles perform two shows at the Rizal Memorial Football Stadium in July 1966 and the one-night performance of pop icon Michael Jackson at a reclamation area somewhere in Pasay City (I believe that’s the one where El Shaddai held their prayer meetings in the past) during the early eighties.
The attendance records for basketball have been inconclusive, especially at the spacious Araneta Coliseum, which officially opened to the public in March 1960 with the staging of the world boxing title match between American Harold Gomes and our very own champion Gabriel (Flash) Elorde.
During the early years of the Philippine Basketball Association in the mid-1970s, and at the height of the storied rivalry between Crispa and Toyota, there were newspaper reports of attendance of as many as 35,000 spectators at the Big Dome during championship games featuring the two popular ballclubs.
It’s said that the figures were exaggerated since the Araneta Coliseum could not possibly have that much space to hold so many people. Then again, the Dome at the time appeared to have larger floorings (to accommodate more people) compared to what it is now after some renovations in the edifice in years past.
The 39-year-old PBA recently declared that an all-time record of 24,883 fans attended Game Seven of the Philippine Cup semifinal series between sister teams San Mig Coffee and Barangay Ginebra last February 12 at the Araneta Coliseum.
I took the announcement with a grain of salt. I still believe the attendance figure pales in comparison to the crowds that watched the epic Crispa vs. Toyota duels at the same venue back in the mid-seventies.
During the 2013 University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) men’s basketball finals between eventual champion De La Salle University and University of Santo Tomas, a combined 67,258 spectators watched the three-game series – 20,525 in Game One and 23,037 in Game Two, both at the Araneta Coliseum, and 23,696 in Game Three at the Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City where a two-year arena attendance record was established.
Note that standing-room-only tickets to the games were sold during the UAAP finals. The MOA Arena, it’s said, has a seating capacity of 16,000 for sporting events, and a full house capacity of 20,000.
With SRO tickets sold, attendance in the decisive third game of the 2013 UAAP finals turned out to be way above the official seating capacity. Even Lady Gaga, who held the first concert at the MOA Arena in May 2012, knows this.