Grizzlies Attendance

Seriously WTF. And people thought the Blazers were out of line for warning people against signing his worthless ass.

 

We were told that he clearly could still play at an NBA level and would prove the Blazers wrong, yet Darius is now mired to the end of the bench on a very bad team playing for next season, which he won't be a part of I'm sure.

 

I also found it very curious that he never played. And although I thought the memphis announcers were pretty good yesterday, they never mentioned his name. Although they did say Travis was a very good SG/SF and Frye ( a very PHYSICAL player) was having his best year??? Oh well...they do have 29 other teams to research

 

They called Rudy Fernandez a good defender too. Couldnt help but snicker at that one.

 

I hear the murder rate in Washington DC is very high compared to the rest of the country . . . maybe the Blazers shouldn't play games on the road against the Wizards.

 

I know Hartford's started to make a bid to bring an NHL franchise back to the city. Not sure if they could support a pro basketball team though. Indiana and Charlotte are both failing because of the assumption that support for college basketball will = support for NBA basketball.

 

And the players get paid a little less!

 

Dammit KP, you should have traded RLEC for one of them Elvisonaotrs!

That's throwing the team under the horseless carriage right there. Yes sirry, Bob. Negligence.

 

The Grizzlies had great attendence when they were a 50 win team. The Kings were considered the load house of the NBA when they were a WCF team. It's all about winning ball games.

 

Really though, what's up with Darius Miles? He hasn't played the last two games.

 

Contract them.

 

Hollins hasn't played him much as of late. He's played him a lot less then Iavaroni.

 

To reprise an old joke: The Bay Area in California is far too large a market to be without an NBA franchise.

 

While I agree that winning is the biggest key to putting butts in seats, the year Memphis won 50 games, they averaged 15,188 home game attendance - 25th out of 29 teams.

The year after their 50-win season, was their best, in terms of attendance, in Memphis at 16,862 per game - 19th out of 30 teams. They won 45 games that season.

The year after that, they won 49 games and averaged 15,793 home attendance - 27th out of 30.

So, they made the play-offs three years in a row and only topped 16,000 average attendance once - and only once made it out of the bottom 5 in average home attendance.

So, even when they were winning, they weren't exactly packing them in (~85% of capacity over those three years).

By comparison, last season the Blazers won 41 games and missed the play-offs. Their average home attendance was 19,550 - 7th in the league and about 98% of capacity.

This year, they are on pace to win 50 games, should make the play-offs, have sold out every home game, and are currently 3rd in the league in average home attendance at 20,497 - 102.6% of capacity.

That's the difference between Portland and Memphis. The Blazers have sold out every home game since late December 2007 and it's not going to get any easier to get tickets now that they are on the verge of making the play-offs. In Memphis, even when they were making the play-offs three years in a row, 15% of the tickets went unsold.

BNM

 

I think it's pretty clear what the Grizzlies need to push their attendence up to our level. He got it done for the A team, why not the Grizzlies?

 

What the Grizzlies need to do is get some homegrown talent aka a Memphis Tigers' player. The Tigers are ranked eighth, I think, in attendance out of all the teams in the country and it is some what surprising considering Memphis hasn't been a big name program until now. Bringing in players that this city basically view as gods (no joke, people here breath Tiger basketball) will get Tigers fans to watch them in the same arena. I guarntee that if we would of somehow gotten Derrick Rose last season we would have a lot more fans in the FedEx Forum for something other then a Tigers game. In fact, after the both Lakers games, the Bulls-Grizzlies game was the most attendence we had all season, and I know they didn't show up to see any player but Rose.

 

Because the A Team didn't suck.

BNM

 

What have they got to lose? Mr. T, even at this stage in his career, would not give them less than what Darius does. And his bling is even better.

 

I hear Penny Hardaway's available.

 

Actually 5 of the top 20 largest US metro areas do not have an NBA franchise. In order of population they are, Riverside–San Bernardino–Ontario, San Diego–Carlsbad–San Marcos, St. Louis, Tampa–St. Petersburg–Clearwater and Baltimore–Towson.

edit: Make that 6 I forgot Seattle–Tacoma–Bellevue.