There'll be empty seats at the sold-out Kohl Center when Caitlin Clark visits Wisconsin. Here's why.

MADISON – The Wisconsin women’s basketball team will play in front of a sellout crowd Sunday afternoon when Iowa comes to town, but it won’t be a packed house.

Based on ticket sales, attendance for the game, which is the Big Ten opener for both teams, will be between 13,500 and 14,000. Tipoff is 1:30 p.m.

The Kohl Center, however, has a seating capacity of 17,071 for basketball.

So how can the same venue set up in the same configuration list different sellout capacities?

The answer comes down to how the tickets are sold.

Tickets for UW men’s basketball home games are sold as reserve seating, which designates the holder with a specific seat in the arena.

Women’s basketball tickets are sold as general admission for the entire season, said Justin Doherty, the sports administrator for women’s basketball. That means the ticket holder can take any seat. With that freedom, however, comes the challenge of making sure parties that attend the game together are able to sit together, Doherty said.

“We just want to make sure it’s a good experience for people who attend the game and sit with their friends and family,” he said.

Space isn't usually a problem at women's basketball games. Wisconsin draws fewer than 5,000 fans for most contests.

But the closer the Kohl Center is filled to its capacity, the harder it is to make general seating work because seats are taken on a first-come, first-serve basis rather than in an organized manner that would allow more people into the arena.

As a result, UW sold fewer tickets than it had seats available. To accomodate the additional crowd, the upper two decks of the arena will be open. Normally they're closed.

Iowa's Caitlin Clark is a big draw

The reason the game is in such demand is because Iowa senior guard Caitlin Clark is coming to town. The popularity of senior sharpshooter exploded last season when she led the Hawkeyes to the national championship game.

This season each of Iowa’s road games is a hot ticket. Northern Iowa sold out for the first time when it hosted the Hawkeyes on Nov. 12. Iowa State, which played host to the Hawkeyes on Wednesday night drew, 14,267.

And there is more to come.

Iowa's game at Rutgers game Jan. 3 is listed as a sellout. At Ohio State on Jan. 21, the lowest you’ll pay for a ticket on the resale market is $350. At Northwestern on Jan. 31, you have to sign up for a season ticket package to get a ticket; all the individual tickets have been sold.

Why not use reserved seating for the Iowa game?

A simple way to get more fans into the building for the game would have been to sell tickets as reserved seating.

Shifting to reserve seating after thousands of tickets had been sold as general admission would be a challenging fix.

Normally seating isn't a problem UW women's basketball games, even when Clark comes to town.

Last year when Clark was a returning All-American and the reigning Big Ten player of the year, the Iowa-Wisconsin game drew 4,022 fans. That ranked fourth among Wiscoinsin's Big Ten home games behind Northwestern, which drew 8,217 on National Girls and Women in Sports Day, Michigan, which drew, 4,933 in the regular-season finale, and Michigan State, which drew 4,254 on a weeknight in February.

This year’s Iowa-UW game is going to drew three times as many fans as last season.