Many small market teams are accused of not having many fans. Obviously, this isn’t the case and the attendance numbers show it. While many of these small market teams don’t have the same seat capacity of some larger market teams, the fans are showing up and showing out.
Here are the small market teams that have 100% attendance on average:
Raptors
Cavaliers
Jazz
Hawks
Bucks
While we may not think of Toronto and Atlanta as small market cities, how often do they get talked about by the national media and how many big name free agents do they bring in? Regardless, these fans show out and sell out their perspective arenas every game.
Now, let’s look at what small market teams have at least 95% attendance on average:
Nuggets
Trail Blazers
Kings
Pelicans
Historically, these teams haven’t seen numbers this high in terms of attendance. These four teams are now exciting NBA teams with electrifying NBA players. The greatest increase in attendance comes from Sacramento and New Orleans. There seems to be a revitalized basketball culture building in both cities.
Teams with at least 90% attendance:
Magic
Grizzlies
Spurs
Pistons
I am surprised to see the Grizzlies in this tier. Ja Morant and the Grizzlies put the league on notice last season, and their great play has continued into this season. They have one of the most exciting players in the league on one of the best teams in the league, yet the fans aren’t filling up the building. It’s even more surprising seeing that the Jazz just blew up their team in the summer and are still getting 100% attendance on average.
Finally, let’s look at what teams pull in the least amount of fans (under 90%):
Hornets (89.9)
Rockets (89.8)
Timberwolves
Wizards (83.9)
Thunder (83.7)
The Hornets and Rockets might as well be in the tier above them giving their %. In spite of having bad teams, these fans still show out. I’m surprised to see the Timberwolves down here considering they have Anthony Edwards and just traded their whole future for Rudy Gobert. Continually, I expected to see Thunder fans attending more games given how well Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has played this season. I do expect that number to go up next season, though, when Chet Holmgren is on the court. The Wizards being down here are not much of a surprise to me. They haven’t been too good, and unlike the other small market teams, they have the 3rd largest arena in the NBA.
I think looking at attendance records helps paint a clearer picture of what cities are basketball cities. However, this number can still be flawed. Fans go to games when their team is winning. The more teams win, the more fans want to watch–it’s a tried and true formula. However, we do have outliers to this such as the Utah Jazz and Toronto Raptors.
Once some of the young stars that are on these bad small market teams breakout, we should see attendance numbers rise greatly. But hey, if fans don’t want to go to the games, we shouldn’t complain about the cheaper ticket prices! I’ll be writing an article soon about ticket prices for small market teams!
All stats were provided by: http://www.espn.com/nba/attendance
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