A study designed for The Wall Street Journal by sports-reference.com, an Internet sports database, looked at NBA teams’ attendance for the past 10 seasons. It then weighed certain factors like city population, arena capacity, prior winning percentage and whether there are other, competing teams in the same market. By those measures, Clippers fans are the most devoted, while Golden State Warriors fans are in second place. Presumably those teams get extra credit for continuing to post relatively strong attendance figures while sporting a combined winning percentage of .399 since the 2000-01 season.
The Chicago Bulls, Cleveland Cavaliers and Dallas Mavericks, who lead the league in fans per game, round out the study’s top five, while the Lakers come in sixth. In last place are the Philadelphia 76ers, just ahead of the Minnesota Timberwolves and New Jersey Nets.
via Los Angeles Clippers Fans: NBA’s Most Loyal – WSJ.com.
It would be easy to just slough this off as the big market advantage, but then you’ve got Philly and New Jersey. If the Nets fail to land LeBron or another big free agent, the move to Brooklyn will be pretty interesting to track.
That said, what in God’s name is wrong with Philly? Sure, they’re terrible this season, but what about the last two when the were a playoff team, that added Elton Brand? This is one of those teams with all that history that everyone freaked out about with the Sonics. So what’s going on? I understand the impact of the other teams in town and their devotees followers, but really, no love for the Sixers? This team made the Finals within the last decade, for crying out loud!
There were four small market teams in the top ten (five if you count Toronto), with the Magic and Bucks at 11th and 12th. This from two franchises that have been horrible for much of the decade. And yet, the league continues to push big markets as the decisive course of action. Small market success leads to increased fan loyalty. Their ceiling is much higher than a major market because once fans are hooked, it becomes a central part of their culture. In LA, once the Lakers are terrible again, people will just switch to the Dodgers or USC, or go to the beach. But fans in other cities will keep coming.
The lack of Minnesota loyalty is kind of a perfect storm. Bad team, that has low loyalty ratings even though they had several years of contention and one of the best players in the league, multiple teams to contend with, and a low overall winning percentage. And you have to look at where the Cavs are in this study and be afraid. It’s been said before, but I’ll say it again. If LeBron leaves Cleveland, it may press that franchise into oblivion.
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The Sixers… they’re the worst team in town, they’re in this death spiral of mediocrity, they’re really boring to watch. Our franchise player has a really dull game, a couple highlights aside, and no personality.
“the league continues to push big markets as the decisive course of action”
¿Are you serious? The league just let a team move from Seattle to Oklahoma, for the love of god!!
And you are completely misunderstanding the results, by the way.
The Lakers sixth place means that even when they weren’t winning, they still sold tickets. Call it the Kobe effect, but that’s what the study said.
And the study doesn’t say that Philly can’t sell tickets when they are good, it says that they can’t sell them when they suck. It measures the variability of tickets sales, basically.
Culture, not size, is the key variable here. You could think that Dallas’s fans would turn off the Mavs when they lose and root for the Cowboys, but it’s Minnesota’s fans who do this.
I couldn’t see the whole ratings, but I would bet that southern teams did poorly, for example, since college basketball is much more their cup of tea.