http://kenn.com/sports/basketball/nba/nba0304.html Almost half (14 of 29) of the teams were within 2% of last year's average attendance. Cleveland was up 59% because of LeBron and the fact he helped make them competitive, which is a large figure. I'll have to check to see if anyone's ever jumped that much in one season before. (Okay, they have, several times. The Cincinnati Royals went from 1,878 a game to 6,258 when they got Oscar Robertson. Other big boosts have come when teams moved into new arenas). The second-highest boost? Denver, with Carmelo (19%). And while I don't put as much stock in road attendance figures as home ones, Cleveland did go up 14% as a road draw. Houston got a 13% bump from their new building, and Minnesota's best-in-the-west 58 wins saw their average rise 12%. No one else improved by more than 7%. Washington dropped off 22% to "lead" the league (first year post-Jordan, and went from 37 wins to 25), while Portland was off 14%. Overall, the league average broke 17,000 for the first time since 1997-98, but was only up 1% when all was said and done.
LeBron pushed the NBA average over 17,000 (to 17,059), up 1% from last year. I think Adu's impact on MLS's attendance will be more significant.
2004-Apr-16 08:44: The NBA remains in a ‘negative cash position’ the league’s commissioner David Stern has warned after two-days of meetings with team chiefs. Speaking after an NBA board of governors meeting, Stern did say there was good news in terms of the sport’s popularity, with attendance figures soaring and arenas, on average, selling out 89 percent of capacity for each game. The figures – averaging 17,050 - represent the highest since the 1997-8 season. http://www.sportbusiness.com/news/index?news_item_id=154295
That was on ESPN.com as well. Attendance was up, but revenue was down. Huh. That's odd. Now, which do you think is more important?
I think it is really surprising that they only sell 89% of seats, considering how small the arenas are compared to the stadia of top outdoor sports.
AND reflect number of games in a season. It's fairly easy to sell out 8 Sunday home games each year. It's somewhat more complicated to sell out 41 home (mostly mid-week) games.
Despite LBJ's 59% Cleveland increase, the league average only increased 1%. NBA execs must be disappointed.
They're more disappointed that revenue is down, based on Stern's comments last week. They don't obsess over every percentage point of attendance growth like MLS fans do.
Of course, NBA fans don't have the lingering spectre of the extinction of their league like MLS fans do, either....
I think that spectre is becoming less and less a problem with each shovel in the ground. IF, as Garber said in Denver (?) recently, they're better off financially than ever, and the prospects are good for continued improvement, I think the cause for concern is less now than at any time. Plus, I think my unspoken point is that the fans who obsess about every digit in attendance on a week-to-week basis are not realizing that they're not obsessing about the right numbers - the numbers none of us have, which are the dollars in and dollars out. Attendance could give us a rough indication of those numbers (though the announced numbers are subject to all sorts of interpretation on their own), but not a complete and accurate one. IF (again if) it's true, as Johnny Moore said on his way out the door, that the 'Quakes were run as a tight ship and didn't lose reprehensible amounts of money compared to other teams, despite having attendance that inspires "pathetic" and "move San Jose" posts every week, you see why I think the weekly sturm und drang is misplaced.
If revenue was down, unliveried payments causes unleveraged concerns. Meaning bills must of been paid.
I think their merchandise revenues are strong, among the strongest out there ($3 billion, I think?). But, how many Yao Ming jersies can one person own?
An interesting note: Nets-Knicks playoff game could not sell more than 1,000 tickets on Saturday. Announced attendance was around 18,000. Metrostars drew over 31,000 at the same time at Giants Stadium (shared parking lot with Continental Arena).
The Nets traditionally have had trouble selling tickets, even the last few years when they've been a very good team. And I can't really blame anybody who opts out of purchasing ridiculously-inflated tickets (usually having to lay out the entire amount for all potential playoff games) for something that drags on as long as the NBA playoffs do. Ian Eagle on YES Network said "For all the hype, this is a two-seed against a seven-seed." And he's right.
Speaking of which the situation with the Nets, and their sale probably hasn't helped the NBA's overall attendance or revenue numbers.
Considering that there are over 10,000 people on the Knicks season-ticket waiting list, it's shocking that Nets could not sell out their first playoff game.
They've been having attendance problems down there for a while. There's really no room for them in the sports consciouness there as the South of Jersey is all Philly fans and the North is all NY fans. Additionally the team was just sold and the new owners announced that they plan to move them to Brooklyn upon completion of an arena there. There's talk of moving them into a smaller venue then continental in the mean time.
IF marketed correctly, the game should have been an easily sellout, even selling only to Knicks fans. Knicks have not made the playoffs in 2 years.
Perhaps the mere thought of forking over a week's salary to see an inferior product deterred that final 1000 ? I'm an enormous hoops fan, but find most NBA games to be thoroughy un-watchable.