Arriving in Tuscaloosa a week ago, Avery Johnson brought big plans for the Alabama basketball program.

Overhauling the game-day experience in Coleman Coliseum was a priority for the new coach. In that spirit, Alabama launched a season-ticket sales drive April 8 in the hours after Johnson was officially introduced. Fans could place a $50 deposit toward a season-ticket application.

Since then, an Alabama spokesman said they've sold approximately 500 new season tickets. That helped offset the drop of 570 season tickets between the 2013-14 and 2014-15 seasons.

Next year's season packages start at $172 per ticket for corner seats. The higher end of the scale cost $264 plus a TidePride contribution ranging from $75 to $2,000 for a court-side seat.

Alabama averaged 10,612 paid tickets per game last season, the lowest number of the six-season Anthony Grant era.

"I'm gonna take a look at every experience that the fan has had over the last six years and just see how we can improve it compared to what we did on the NBA level," Johnson said. "Some of it needs to be a surprise. Gotta have some element of surprise. And what we try, if it doesn't work we'll keep working on it. But we've got to have a significant home-court advantage. It's my job, obviously, to make sure that they players can play at a high, competitive level on the court. That's going to get the fans involved.

"But during timeouts, at halftime, entering the coliseum, leaving the coliseum, when you hit the parking lot, there's gotta be something different. That's what we're going to take a look and analyze all aspects of it."

Alabama paid attendance averages with national ranking



44. 9,960 in 2008-09 (last year of Mark Gottfried era)



37. 10,945 in 2009-10



35. 10,983 in 2010-11



27. 12,484 in 2011-12



31. 11,159 in 2012-13



35. 10,754 in 2013-14



n/a 10,612 in 2014-15 (does not include NIT game)