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An ongoing theme here at That Fan is monitoring “color-out” games, in which teams ask every fan to dress in a single color in order to create a better crowd atmosphere.  Color-outs look great on TV (if the fan participation is good) and can possibly add a bit of extra excitement to a crowd, which can ultimately impact a game.  That Fan is trying to keep track of all color-out games so that we can do some studying on whether teams with color-out games actually perform better.  You can read the college football update HERE (we also talked about a Louisville white-out game last month).

The most recent color-out game was held Saturday at Georgetown University in a basketball game against the Duke Blue Devils.  Duke came in ranked seventh in the country, with hopes of scoring a quality road win versus number eleven Georgetown.  Georgetown had organized a gray-out game however, and hoped that it would give the team an added boost for this tough test.

The Georgetown booster club passed out gray-out shirts to all the fans.

Over time That Fan has learned that home teams hover around the .500 mark during color-out games, however Georgetown did win 89-77 in this game.  The official attendance was 20,039, and I’m guessing almost all were decked out in gray.  The only problem is that the two most popular fans at the game didn’t:  President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.  Come on guys, you are supposed to be setting the example for fans across the country!

An interesting question we have for all the readers out there:  if you are at a color-out game with 99% of the fans wearing the suggested color, what do you say to the fan next to you who didn’t wear the right color?  Leave us a comment below and let us know your thoughts!

Over the course of the college football season That Fan was documenting the results of how various teams fared when their school organized a “Color-out” game in which the school asked the entire crowd to come dressed in a specific color (i.e. white-out, black-out, etc.).  I haven’t given an end-of-season update to this analysis (I’ll save that for sometime in the spring when you football fans are drooling about spring practice), but I figured I might as well start on the basketball color-outs.

The point of my research was to see if these games provided any sort of benefit to the home team.  These special games create a buzz amongst the fans, which may or may not lead to fans being more excited at the game, which then may or may not make them cheer louder at the game, which may or may not pump up the home team’s players and scare the living hell out of the away team’s players.  What I found for football however, is that teams lost color-out games more than they won them (you can read the latest football update HERE).

There have been a couple other color-out games in college basketball so far this year, but none of them likely had the participation that the University of Louisville had last night with their white-out game against Villanova in Freedom Hall.

There were 20,076 fans that rolled through the gates, and just about every one of them was in some form of white.  Even Coach Pitino did his best Miami Vice impression and wore a white suit.  The game was a back and forth battle, but ultimately Villanova came out on top, 92-84.  Another loss for a home crowd having a color-out game.

I asked an interesting question to Louisville fans over our Twitter account:  If you’re at a white-out game and the fan next to you wears a red shirt, what do you say to him?  Anything?  leave a comment below and let us know your thoughts if it were to happen with your team!