San Antonio 10? Great orginazation, but the town!?!?!?!?!?! River walk, Alamo and that's it. Bored after 2 days!
A) I think the article is talking about right now, who cares about 3 years ago if you're a current FA. So to even bring this up in the article is puzzling. B) Portland has proven itself to be far from a bandwagon fanbase, that's ridiculous. The jailblazers did enough to turn any fanbase off, and combine that with a few horrible seasons on the court and that slimy, distrusting front office we had, and you have the perfect storm. That was a rare situation that I wouldn't expect to happen again anytime soon. The crowds have been great all the way back to the 70's, and three years shouldn't outweight all those other years. The way the national media destroyed the Blazers every chance they got during the jailblazer era makes an article like this, which paints the fans as fairweather, a little hypocritical.
They didn't judge the city of Detroit. It was Auburn Hills and the rest of the fancy suburbs like Birhmingham.
I am white and i love visiting Atlanta as well. But we rarely see top free agents go there. One year of a semi filled arena does not convince me that they have any fan support. That place is almost always empty. It is not a top 10 franchise.
And that's relevant how, exactly? We were 3rd in attendance last year. Teams like Atlanta and New Jersey can't even get crowds when they win.
I'm a city guy, so I don't really like it. But it beats being in downtown Detroit! Also, New Orleans should be dead last!
We made the playoffs for the first time in like 7 years or something like that....we're on a championship path, of course we're going to have a good attendance. New Jersey is a shithole and their team is going to move, and ATL sucks.
The only time I've been to Detroit was to get a look at Tiger Stadium during it's last season. It's a depressing place (wish I could've seen it before it got screwed up.) Anyway, on the way to the airport, the cabbie asked where I lived and I said I live in Seattle. He said, "you don't live IN Seattle, do you? You live in the suburbs?" I told him that I actually lived in the city and he could not understand why I'd ever choose to live in a city. When I told him the billionaire/Starbuck's founder/mega a-hole Howard Schultz lived in the city, he was dumbfounded. His view of city life was that bleak. The suburbs were like the promised land to him. Weird stuff.
Most Blazer fans are bandwagon jumpers. It's true. A lot of people used the "jail blazer" image as an excuse, but that was bullshit. They weren't going because the team sucked. Plain and simple. Don't believe me? Attendance was low during the end of the Rod Strickland era and the beginning of the Kenny Anderson/JR Rider/Rasheed Wallace era. Attendance didn't pick back up until we traded for Damon Stoudamire and made it to the WCF in 98-99. The Blazers were pratically giving tickets away before that. Two-fer Tuesdays were the shit. Peak fanbase and attendance during the Clyde/Porter/Kersey era and then a lull. Peaked again when it was Damon/Rider/Sheed/Pippen/Smith/Sabas. Lulled again after we lost in the WCF to LA and then flat lined with all the Jail Blazer stuff. While our attendance was never THAT bad, neither was the team. I think it's funny that fans blame the Jail Blazer reputation, but that rep was originally garnered because of Rider/Wallace/Stoudamire while we were heading towards the WCF. Think it's a coincidence that we had our lowest fan turnout when the team was at its worst? Oh, but that's because of our reputation, right?
Compared to Chicago? Look at the support the Cubs get. They probably have the longest streak in any sport for not winning a championship. Yet they are one of the top three most popular teams in the league. What does that say about Chicago?
All fanbases come and go to some degree depending on the success of the team. That's not very hard to understand (although maybe for you it is). But the fact is the article singled out Portland fans for not showing up for a few years, and didn't do the same thing for other franchises. Houston was 3rd worst in attendance just 4 years ago, yet they're ranked #4 on this list. That same year Orlando was 4th worst in attendance (and the previous year, 3rd worst the year before that), yet on this list they're ranked #5. So what's the difference? And none of those fanbases were subjected to the jailblazers on top of losing...
well, it was very noticable the ways the fans abandoned the franchise in their darkest hours...not just a lull of mediocrity...it was very well publicized about how much the fan support dropped to a poor record and the jailblazer image. its not just the jailblazer label, it was also how much the fanbase "loved" the blazers but a few bumps and no more love.... houston and orlando are there because houston is where a lot of pro-athletes like to live, they can buy big blinged out mansions for cheap, lots of black wealth and the weather is hot. Orlando..its florida, nice place to live. that's why they are ranked so high on the list. portland is a dank, dreary and cloudy place.
