Sacramento Kings moving franchise to the OC, CA.

Depends on your definition of poorly. This shows seven teams drawing below 80 percent capacity.

http://espn.go.com/nba/attendance/_/sort/homePct

And that's with the reported attendance figures, which we all know to be largely bullshit, and leaving aside the deep-deep-deep StubHub discounts. (I think there have been reports recently of the Nets and T-Wolves selling tickets for a penny.)

 

Yeah, but who's the third baseman?

 

Nets were selling tix for a penny (plus the Stubhub fees, which were about $10) when they were in New Jersey. They're doing much better in Brooklyn.

 

Well that's quite a bit different from your earlier point.

However, the Bucks are an above-.500 playoff team as of now and rank second to last in attendance vs. capacity (fourth from last in raw total).

 

I guess I just disagree with the line you're drawing. Especially in competition with other teams that are drawing 90-plus percent, a team like Milwaukee that's getting 77 percent (and with likely a much lower per-ticket price) is a fairly significant disadvantage. They have to pay players at the same scale, not a cost-of-living-adjusted one.

 

The Pacers' situation is more complicated, because there was a period where they were drawing well. The aftermath of the Pacers-Pistons brawl slammed the franchise in many ways, but the real turning point was the triptych of Ron Artest demanding to be traded (after fans stood by his side when everyone else hated him), and separate incidences of gunplay involving Stephen Jackson and Jamal Tinsley. Plus, with all the crap the Pacers had to take to get rid of all these guys, this was an unwatchable team that had crashed its reputation in the community -- as the Colts were winning every year, and IU was ascending back to its historical perch. Finally, it seems, attendance is picking back up.

Still, the situation gives you an idea why Kansas City is never going to be a serious candidate for a move (and why New Orleans shouldn't have been). If you're in a relatively small market that already has other major sports options, and you suck or people don't like you for whatever reason, your attendance will drop in a hurry. There are too many other options, and sellouts are built upon a fairly large percentage of the population shelling out for a game. Milwaukee strains hardest of all, with competition among the Packers, Brewers and college teams in a metro population of less than 2 million.

Sacramento at least had the only-game-in-town thing going for it, but Seattle, I'm sure, seems attractive, because it has a relatively small number of sports franchises for its size, and there is a LOT more corporate and rich-people money.

 

The Pistons' announced attendance of 14,000+ is utter bullshit. There is no way in flaming freaking hell the number of actual warm bodies in the building averages over 7,000.

Of course, attendance went down the toilet in the 1990s too, after the Bad Boys team dispersed and the team fell into the crapper.

Actually, this is the way it should be. When a winning team goes to shit, why the hell should fans continue to pay big bucks to watch?

The idea that fans have some kind of obligation to support a shit team is one of the most ridiculous tropes pushed by the ownership-slurping mainstream sports media.

 

Bob has it right on KC. Sprint has money and the new arena is NBA/NHL-ready but there just isn't a fan base to pay $73 a ticket in that town. Minneapolis has all the right demos and the Wolves struggle, although I would argue some of that was the wild coming in.

KC is now the chump for unhappy NBA or NHL owners to move to but never will. As long as Stern is commish, he will not allow a team in Kansas City. That was his first relocation and he won't allow a team back there and I doubt his successor will.

 

Fully agree.

I think there is no nobility in "we support our team even when they are 3-13".

Suckers.

If your team stinks, cancel your tickets. Don't go. Don't pay parking, concessions or buy hats.

This is why teams like the Chicago Cubs never have to make upgrades. Fans keep coming.

A handful of teams have a superb fan base but still try and keep improving.

 

I agree 100% and think one level down, that is moronic for fans to fill a home stadium to watch Alabama play Georgia State, FSU play Savannah State or UF play directional fodder. If fans avoid those turd games and teams maybe they will have incentive to build a better team or schedule better opponents.

 

I don't think the Bucks are going to move because Milwaukee has just enough history that the NBA would feel bad about it. But I still can't understand why Sacramento, Minnesota, Memphis, Charlotte, New Orleans, Orlando or Atlanta -- only one of which was even in the NBA when David Stern took over -- would have an ironclad guarantee that it would never again have to live without a team.

 

NBA didn't feel bad about Seattle getting abandoned. And they had just as much history as the Bucks did.