This is interesting: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41812-2003Dec6.html So NBA attendance is tickets distributed, even if they're not necessarily sold. The interesting thing is that they had to do this even when they had Michael Jordan. The NFL used to announce a tickets distributed figure in each of its press boxes, along with an actual in house figure and the number of no-shows (the former minus the latter). I haven't been in an NFL press box in several years, so I don't know if they still do this. The New York Giants announced 78,217 for their game yesterday at Giants Stadium, but supposedly there were only about 22,000 fans there. No grand pronouncements. Just interesting.
It is interesting that they are counting "Freebies", I find that a little odd. I understand counting no shows (usually its a segment of season ticket holders that couldn't attend or give away that games tickets) because they actually sold those seats. I mean, what can the team do about those that buy but don't show up. In the case of the Giants game I'm sure the weather had a bit to do with it. Plus their pathetic record this year and the fact that they are out of the playoff run. Who wants to go to a meaningless late season game with sub 30 temps??
yeah, i saw highlights of an Atlanta Hawks game a week or two ago and the Sportscenter anchors were talking about how few people were there, i'd guess there were MAYBE 2,000 people there, and it was a 10,000 crowd announced.
I watched that Giants-Redskins game and there may have been 22,000 empty seats. It was still a decent crowd. If you ever seen those USFL games on ESPN Classic, it was about the crowd that the Generals would have drawn in 1985. It was shocking to see so many empty seats at a Giants game, but it was still a better crowd than the Cardinals draw. It was a great showing considering the weather and the two non-playoff teams. Now those two Nets games on Friday and Saturday, there were maybe 5,000 at both of them. Combined.
So you're saying "looked like more on TV?" The Generals averaged 41,268 in 1985, BTW. That would leave about 36,000+ empty seats. Of course, that doesn't count the snowmen.
The old San Jose numbers were the same under Metaperal. At the 2001 ASG in SJ, Garber remarked that San Jose's attendance was up over the previous year. After the press conference Mike Woitolla, among others, pressed him for details as their attendance figures showed a 4 or 5 thousand drop. That's when Garber said he was talking about paid attendance. I believe that MLS only counts paid seats. Which does include sponsor bought and redistributed (freebies) tickets. As long as the league gets money, they count them.
Heh heh, looked like more. But seriously, as many sporting events as I've seen played at Giants Stadium, it did look like 40,000+. But Chicken Lit... I mean Chris Russo was going on and on about 20,000 people in the stadium. I could be wrong, but the only team I know of that always reports the turnstyle count is the Red Sox. Capacity for night games is 33,993, but their numbers are usually in the 32-33,000 range, sometimes more than the listed capacity. I suppose if your drop count looks good enough, why not report that? Man, wouldn't it be nice to have these discussions in the News and Analysis forum?
NBA in trouble Nets, a last year finalist can barely draw 14,000 a game Devils are not doing much better
Actually, I think they're trying to. To another building anyway. I've heard their current location used as an excuse for their bad attendance. Anyone know if that's a legitimate excuse for their lousy attendance?
they're talking about it. I remember just recently talk of them moving to Long Island or somewhere in NY.
The guy who owns the Islanders just dropped his bid. He wants a new arena on Long Island. There was also somebody who wanted to move the team to a new arena in Brooklyn. And there was some talk floated about them sharing Madison Square Garden with the Knicks.
I think he meant the whole state...move the WHOLE STATE OF NJ somewhere else. Like to Nebraska or something.
There were talks that the Nets could move to Brooklyn. But I think Kidd said he didn't want to move to Brooklyn because he wanted to atleast play in "Long Island." Nice.
Personally, my impression of my one trip to New Jersey was that Calvin Trillin was right about his suggestion for the state's slogan: "We don't suck as much as you think we do!" IIRC, and I'm too lazy to look it up, Kidd said he signed on to play in New Jersey, not Long Island. In Portland, the days of Rip City are long gone: http://www.oregonlive.com/blazers/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/front_page/1070715456178490.xml We might be seeing what is called a "market correction" here.
Went to last night's Nets game and while the announced attendance was over 11,000 there could not have been more than 3-4,000 in attendance. I may be wrong but I think MLS at least counts tickets sold as attendance.
It's really become accepted practice for every team I run into to count comps. Everyone in Boise is particularly guilty of this. Owners of the Timbers have acknowledged that they do this. Every two-bit league out there has examples of this happening. Frankly, I'd be surprised if MLS was NOT doing it. I'll try not to get started about the Blazers... though I tend to think the downturn there has more to do with local issues than with national trends.
Attendance numbers should be audited - just like magazine circulations - because advertisers are being cheated by this attendance inflation.
The Clippers always did this. They didn't even have the excuse of counting comps and stuff, they just picked a number that in theory wouldn't get them laughed out of the Sports Arena. Didn't always work, either. I'm pretty sure they're back to their lyin' ways at the Staples Center, after a couple of years of decent gates. Since the NBA makes its money on TV and merchandise, I don't think this is quite the problem it would be for the NHL or MLS. The NFL, I think, does legitimately sell all the tickets it counts, otherwise they wouldn't be able to sell those preseason ripoffs.
The NBA is still taking in a very, very big chunk of change from tickets - if they're announcing 20 million fans a season, even if they're giving away 15 percent of their announced (and I doubt most franchises are like Washington), that's still 17 million people at about, what, $35 a ticket? $40 a ticket? I don't know what they're taking in from merchandise, but is it more than $595 million a year? I'm asking, I have no idea. But to say they make their real money from merchandise and TV is slightly misleading because unless your sport is popular enough to get people to actually attend the games, the other stuff like TV and merchandise doesn't usually follow. TV, yeah, that's a buncha money - something like $767 million a year, isn't it? That's where the lion's share of revenue comes from, I reckon, but the networks wouldn't pony up for that if there wasn't a proven fan base as evidenced by ticket sales. But, in the grand scheme of things, a million a year in comps here and there isn't a huge problem, or at least, the NBA has bigger ones. And, except in Phoenix (and, to a lesser extent, smaller markets like Jacksonville and Indianapolis), the NFL doesn't have many problems moving tickets, mostly as season tickets. Edited to add: Yes, the NBA is projected to take in over $3 billion worldwide from merchandise sales. Holy cow. Never mind.
Baffling I've lived in the DC area for 17 years, and that article just sums up how pathetic the Bullets organization is. The rationales given for the give-aways are "so the team can announce a sellout" and "make it look like the arena is full." Newsflash: Tix are available for every game. In fact, you can scalp for less than face value practically every night if you wait till tipoff. How scalpers make a living off the Caps/Bullets is beyond me. I've literally tried to give Caps/Bullets tickets away when friends couldn't make it and had no luck. As a marketing strategy, for any established sport, it is a loser over the long term. I could see MLS giving away tix to youth groups in the hope of hooking them as fans. The NBA is a mature sport though, the only thing that is gonna hook fans is winning games. Which is the one thing that piece of trash franchise simply can't do.
