I just noticed this on ESPN (link). I was surprised our attendance is so high, there has been a number of criticisms of fan support this year but there are only 5 teams averaging more fans per game than our Blazers. Those 5 teams are all in vastly larger markets. The team has increased the price of tickets and discontinued cheap seat promo’s so the turnout is doing very good. The Pacers have the best record in the league but place 18th in attendance, in a state with more people than Oregon. The Hawks are the 3rd best team in the East but place 28th in attendance. Blazers support is great!
I think a lot of us have lost perspective because of the sellout streaks... now that the business end isn't trying to game the system to get a "sellout", attendance looks lower, but might actually be higher than when we were "selling out" every night.
Knicks fans are amazing. I remember going to games there during the David Lee years and the fans were into it like they were championship contenders.
I'm highly skeptical of that numbers as the games I've been to this year were no where close to that number. 19,274 represents over 95% capacity and for many games, there were only around 15,000 butts in seats and that is being generous on a couple of nights. There were entire rows and almost entire sections empty at some of the earlier games. Now that may represent a ticket sold number but I've been shocked at the number of empty seats I've seen untill the Pacer and OKC games...neither of which were sellouts.
There is no way any of the games have only had 15,000 or fewer in the seats. I've been to every game and that's just silly. The corner sections in the upper decks have had empty rows at the top, and the 200 level of the two endzones have been sparse for a few matchups, but there aren't a combined 5500 seats there.
