Poor Attendance Figures

[Don Wassall]

The Caste media reported (celebrated?) some poor early season attendance figures in St. Louis and Chicago last season as "proof" that hockey was "in trouble" and a "niche" sport. But I've noticed some low attendance figures at early NBA games this season, lower than I can recall seeing in quite a few years, and not suprisingly haven't come across any articles mentioning it.


Just in the NBA box scores reported in the Thursday sports section of the local rag, we find these turnouts:


Charlotte at Philadelphia -- 9,317 (about one-half what the Flyers draw)


L. A. Clippers at Indiana -- 10,122 (wow!)


Miami at San Antonio -- 17,503 (1,000less than capacity for a matchup of the two most recent league champions)


Memphis at Seattle -- 10,761 (basketball interest has collapsed in a former hotbed)


Seattle at Sacramento -- 14,908 (about 2,600 less than capacity for a team that sold out every home game for many years)


Considering that the NBA gets at least ten times as much free publicity and hype from the corporate media as does the NHL, if there's a league "in trouble," it isn't the NHL.

 

[Deadlift]

I was flipping channels and I saw a part of "NBA Fast Break?" on ESPN2 last week when they were showing Pacer highlights -- and the Indiana arena was barren!

I heard they had some attendance problems last year so I wasn't the least bit shocked, but all those empty gaps between the people were vast!


I knew it was only a matter of time before somebody posted about this subject!

 

[James]

ESPN has the attendence figures for the 2007-2008 NBA season here:


http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/atttendance


Philadelphia has the worst home attendence at 63.3% and Dallas has the best at 106%.

 

[Jimmy Chitwood]

James, that link isn't working. could you re-post the information?

 

[Don Wassall]

Of the seven NBA box scores from last night in the local rag, only two were sellouts. Three teams drew less than 12,500 -- Charlotte, Indiana, and Memphis. Looks like ESPN is giving the league's attendance problems the same amount of coverage they gave the shooting and crime spree in Las Vegas during last season's All Star game -- none.

 

[Jimmy Chitwood]

to put those attendance figures in perspective...

Cameron Indoor Arena, home of the Duke Blue Devils and one of the smaller basketball venues for major college basketball, seats a little over 9,300... and has sold out since who knows when.

Bud Walton Arena, home of the Arkansas Razorbacks, has averaged over 17,000 in attendance for every game since the facility opened in '93-'94.

for NBA venues to be drawing such paltry numbers is a sure sign of lack of fan support.

 

[white is right]

The NBA isn't much better than hockey and in some ways is worse. Hockey has much more loyal following. Plus the hardcore hockey fan has a higher income than the hardcore basketball fan. If the NBA was doing so well then TNT wouldn't have had the bulk of the playoff games last season. In Canada the non cable broadcaster gets the bulk of the playoff games.