Myths of Decline

Dave Berri notes that despite the sense you frequently get of the NBA declining in popularity, attendance is actually way up:

In 2006-07 the average NBA team attracted 726,954 fans during the regular season. And this was the all-time record. Let me repeat. Last season the NBA - which Shanoff says is declining in popularity - set an all-time attendance record. And this is a per-team average record (of course they also set a record for total attendance).

To put this mark in perspective, 20 years ago - during the peak of the Boston-LA rivalry — the NBA’s per team average was only 550,190 fans. Across the past 20 years, while the U.S. population has grown 23.8%, NBA attendance has grown 38.7%.

So more teams and higher average attendance -- that seems pretty good. What's probably going on is that thanks to the proliferation of media everything has more of a niche vibe than it used to. Back before most people had cable, anytime anything was on television at all it was somewhere between 1/3 and 1/7th (depending on where you lived) of the total things available to watch on TV and there were no DVDs or websites or OnDemand offerings to provide further options. So anything that got above a certain "it's on television" threshold automatically acquired a certain air of mass relevance that, these days, is very hard for anything to achieve.

Comments

Note also the chance that some of this may be driven by the opening of newer, larger arenas. Its plausible that there was a lot of pent up gate demand 20 years ago that couldn't be filled because games were sold out, but that now its easier to get in the games. This would not represent more fans wanting to see games live, but a higher % of the fans who want to see games live actually getting the chance.

Likely doesn't explain the whole delta (My sense is that arenas have gotten bigger but there is a limit to how big they can get and still be a true arena) but only some of it.

TV ratings are obviously also very important, though I have no idea where those are trending.

Posted by sd | March 30, 2008 12:29 PM

THIS IS EXCELLENT NEWS!! FOR HILLARY!!!

Posted by idiotic | March 30, 2008 12:48 PM

Finally, idiotic. Where have you been?

Posted by Monster | March 30, 2008 12:55 PM

The same is also true of the NHL, which was supposed to have been killed by labor strife. (Of course, it gets less tv exposure, so you have to go to the games.) Speaking for myself, I hardly watch either one anymore, but I suppose I'll watch my 76ers(!) in the playoffs.

Posted by David B. | March 30, 2008 1:01 PM

Even Hilldog can see that the NBA is counting tickets sold, not butts in seats.

Ticket resellers have helped a bit, but look at games on TV -- there are plenty of empty seats down low.

Posted by mcd | March 30, 2008 1:01 PM

I'd certainly like to know more before concluding an increase in NBA fan interest based only on those average attendance numbers. What percentage of fans attending NBA games are season ticket holders? How many distinct fans are represented, on average, by the 726,954 average 06-07 attendance figure for each team? How closely are non-attending fans following the game? To what extent does the interest represented by attendance numbers represented in attendance carry over into other expressions of fan interest and support? How many page views do NBA stories in online newspapers receive, compared to page views for other sports? What sort of demand do sports page editors measure for NBA coverage? What level of demand is there for NBA player endorsements, or for NBA gear and souvenirs?

And what is the actual interest level of the people attending NBA games? How many are serious fans of that local team, or the NBA in general? How many are business class out-of-towners taking advantage of some client's or vendor's season tickets? What are the average resale values of tickets from ticket agencies and scalpers?

Some of the media perception of fan interest may reflect a subjective bias in favor of major markets. In Boston, New York, Chicago and LA has probably been down in recent years because the teams from those markets haven't been dominating or even contending, and they have seen a relative dearth of high-profile talent. Until the Celtics acquired Kevin Garnett this year, Kobe Bryant was for some time the only superstar-level player on display in those markets.

Posted by Dan Kervick | March 30, 2008 1:08 PM

sd is obviously correct. hoopsonline.com confirms the obvious, that every franchise but the Pistons is playing in a more capacious arena now than in '85-'86. Given that the increase shown in Berri's stats reflects an increase of about 4,400 fans per home game per team, it's not hard to see the difference coming from the new arenas. The Blazers are +8,600, the Bucks are +7,500, the Kings are +7,000, the Jazz are +6,000, the Clippers are +5,000, the Suns and Spurs are both +4,500. And everybody else is at least +2,700 or so. And, on top of that, most of the numerous new franchises since then play in larger arenas than were typical in '85-'86.

If the NBA is proud of itself for managing to sell 4,000 more tickets per game in the biggest cities in America now than in the Reagan administration while TV ratings have plummeted, y'all knock yourselves out defending it.

Posted by balisardo | March 30, 2008 1:10 PM

PHX will win the West this year.

Mark my words.

Posted by Shaq | March 30, 2008 1:28 PM

While I also like the NBA, the argument based solely on attendance #s is somewhat limited. In comments to the post you linked to, folks mention declining TV ratings, that attendance is generally down this year, etc. Dan Kervick above also asks some interesting -- but, I suspect, very difficult if not impossible to answer -- questions.

I've always been a fan of the NBA, and in the 80s & 90s, I could regularly talk to friends about it, and they all had favorite teams & opinions on players, and were up with the league. In conversations these days, most of the folks I'm talking to just aren't up on the NBA.

The Bird-Magic era and then the Jordan era(s) were truly fantastic and successful times for the NBA. But after the strike and the sustained success of the personality-less [and small market] Spurs, the NBA does feel to me, anecdotally, like it's declined. The TV numbers seem to confirm that (again, going off the commenters at the linked post, who may or may not be entirely correct).

In any event, I'd hesitate to say that the NBA is doing hunky-dory in this country based purely on attendance numbers. I've been to several games in Detroit and Cleveland over the past four years or so, and I've often found the atmosphere somewhat lacking. Fun, but surprisingly large numbers of empty seats, and *way* too much piped-in noise & random shit going on at every interval. And then the crowd seems sluggish at getting into the real action once it resumes.

All this said, I think the NBA is easily best positioned of all the major American sports to grow globally. Baseball and Tackle Football are just so mind-numbingly complicated & boring compared to the action intensity of true Football (soccer) and Basketball that I just don't see the others catching on anywhere. Basketball already has a pretty decent toehold in Europe, and Yao has definitely spurred interest in China. So, regardless of its position here, the NBA is probably going to be OK (I really do expect to see a European division of 5 or 6 teams in the next 10 years or so).

Posted by NBA fan | March 30, 2008 1:34 PM

The TV Ratings for the NBA playoffs and Finals were at their obvious peak during the Jordan era, even as cable tv options were starting to proliferate. So there are obviously other factors at work here other than the proliferation of other media options.

Michael Jordan was must-see TV in a way no one in basketball was before or since. The only comparable is what Tiger Woods has done for golf -- both were/are the sole reason two or three times as many people watch an event as would otherwise.

Other than the Jordan era, professional basketball is a niche sport in the U.S.A. It's just not woven into the fabric of the culture quite as broadly as football and baseball are.

Posted by Ban Johnson | March 30, 2008 1:37 PM

Might want to make a correction for the number of fans with easy access. Perhaps there is a continuation of migration from country to city; and most immigrants go to the cities.

Folks that move to the cities no longer have their local minor league sports to go to.

I don't think that this would get rid of the whole effect, but it might reduce it.

Posted by Robert Hume | March 30, 2008 1:42 PM

the same is true for major league baseball, which is setting attendance records year after year.

Perhaps what this actually says is that attendance figures alone are an imperfect measure of a sports' health

Posted by just an apikores | March 30, 2008 1:50 PM

The perception of declining interest across the league surely results from the fact that there IS declining interest in the Northeast, traditionally a hotbed of NBA fandom. New Jersey and Philadelphia attendance has been a joke the past few years, and although the Knicks still do very well financially, there are thousands more empty seats each night than there used to be. Presumably Boston was having trouble attendance-wise prior to bringing in Ray Ray and KG. And the team that appears on television perhaps more than any other, the Miami Heat, has perhaps the weakest fan-base in the league.

It is frequently suggested, with good reason, that teams regularly lie about their attendance to minimize PR damage. The Nets are especially well-known for this. The number of butts in seats is also ALWAYS much less than the number of tickets sold, because so many tickets are box seats and pricey season tickets sold to local firms and corporations which frequently allow those tickets to go unused.

Personally, I am a huuuuuuge NBA fan who used to go to at least a few games a year but the past two years I've passed on opportunities to attend time and time again. Until recently, my Sixers have been almost unwatchable (even their more exciting opponents usually phoned it in against the Sixers, presumably because they were still recovering from Atlantic City trips the night before). And yet the Sixers, whose tickets are mighty expensive unless you want a nosebleed (which is still mighty expensive in its own right) just announced yet another significant hike in prices for next season. Except in places like New Orleans and New Jersey, the cost of NBA tickets has priced out your average fan. And because the big corporations continue to buy season tickets, regardless of whether they end up using them, the NBA franchises still remain profitable so they don't really care. Very shortsighted.

It's sad and getting sadder. In Philadelphia, at least, your average white sportsfan no longer cares about NBA basketball.

Posted by cityyear95 | March 30, 2008 2:11 PM

The arenas are bigger.

Posted by jlk | March 30, 2008 3:06 PM

Actually MLB attendance is up while most new stadiums are smaller than the ones they are replacing. And TV ratings tend to be up.

Posted by Rob | March 30, 2008 3:22 PM

Posted this yesterday on the Stern thread. Harris poll, February 5, 2008:

Asked of adults who follow one or more sport - "If you had to choose, which ONE of these sports would you say is your favorite?"

Pro football - 30% (compare to 26% in 1998)
Baseball - 15% (18%)
College football - 12% (9%)
Auto racing - 10% (7%)
Hockey - 5% (3%)
Men’s pro basketball - 4% (13%)
Men’s college basketball - 4% (4%)
Men’s golf - 4% (4%)

So, while the number of people purchasing NBA tickets is up, the number watching on TV is down, and the percentage who say pro basketball is their favorite sport is way down.

Posted by Al | March 30, 2008 3:29 PM

The NBA doesn't count actual attendance (or, more precisely, they don't release those numbers). "Attendance" is actually tickets sold. So corporations buying up tickets doesn't seem like a good yardstick of NBA popularity.

Off topic, sorry, but here's to the University of Memphis.

Hope we busted your bracket!

Posted by mcd | March 30, 2008 4:59 PM

Unlike baseball, tennis, soccer, and golf - NFL football and basketball are racially limited at most positions to dominance by blacks gifted with the genes for fast-twitch muscles and a greater than 36" vertical leap. And more and more, congoloid genes mean that coccer must grow blacker to compete.

Now, there will be a minority of whites and Asians that compete well, but they will not be a majority. To do well with fans, pro sports have to convince them that there is a chance that they could do well at it, that there kids have a chance to rise to success at that sport, or at least that the athletes represent the best of their culture, tribe, identity...And now only a small minority of whites, asians, and hispanics now gather & cheer for people utterly unlike them, not of their identity/culture/tribe. Nor is the large and prosperous black middle class replacing the numbers of alienated fans of other races, causing TV revenues - thus money - to decline

For every adult who swears this is a lie and they cheer for Michael Jordan or Jerry Rice and think their kid could end up like them, there are 9 realists that say bullshit, and there is a large section of otherwise unrealistic potential fans turned off by black thug/ghetto culture on prominent display in the NFL and NBA "pro leagues". The two sports are going where boxing went - into a narrower niche that wanted to see blacks and only blacks in competition at the higher weights - and the only reason boxing has has a revival is the arrival of some white superheavywights and the hispanic audience is now propping up the lower weight classes well-staffed by hispanic fighters not put off by the smaller purses in those weights.

Fans may still cheer like crazy at the collegiate level, even with a preponderance of blacks, because those teams are still claimed tribally as theirs - but when your average NFL or NBA pro team shifts staff between other teams and all players are interchangeable rather than a "real San Franciscan, real Miami player" you even lose city loyalty..

Racial balance is healthier for sport than racial dominance. Players that stay in one city promote fan loyalty.

It would be like a league of mostly white swimmers with a college preppy culture trying to promote their sport to inner city blacks and africans, and shifting teams every 3 years. Very few fans would come from there..

Posted by chris ford | March 31, 2008 3:01 AM

chris ford:

Your argument is wrong at best, downright offensive at worst. Some thoughts:

1) The NBA is almost certainly "whiter" now than during its peak years. This is largely due to the rise of Europe and Latin America as sources for NBA prospects.

2) The NFL is suffering from no deterioration in popularity whatsoever (Indeed, quite the opposite per Al's comment above), despite the fact that it is almost certainly getting "blacker." The NFL has historically been segregated by position, but the traditionally "black" positions (RB, WR, CB) have remained so while the traditionally "white" positions (QB, O-line) have become increasingly mixed.

3) Your argument about college basketball and football attracting primarily "tribal" loyalty is bunk. I think its a fair bet that at least a few people outside of North Carolina, Kansaas, Southern California and Western Tennessee will be watching the final four this weekend.

4) Hockey remains a niche sport.

5) Golf has arguably become more popular as it has come to be dominated by a black man with one of the 2 or 3 next best players a dark skinned Indian.

Now, I think there is something to the idea that increasing "thuggishness" is partly responsible for the decline in popularity of the NBA. This has less to do with race per se though than the fact that, in contrast to the NFL, the NBA has a relatively strong players' union and players' unions oppose efforts to discipline players as a matter of course.

Posted by sd | March 31, 2008 12:36 PM

Also, Chris Ford, you seem to know nothing about soccer.

Let's look at some of the best in the world right now/recently:

Cesc Fabregas, Raul, Fernando Torres -- Spaniards
Cristiano Ronaldo -- Portuguese
Wayne Rooney, Gerrard, Becks, Lampard, Owen -- English
Kaka -- Brazilian (white)
Zidane -- French/Algerian
Franck Ribery, Laurent Blanc, Didier Deschamps -- French
Michael Ballack -- German
Nemanja Vidic -- east euro
Robin van Persie, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Arlen Robben, Wesley Sneijder, Roy Makaay, Marc Overmars, Dennis Bergkamp -- Dutch

Sure, Ronaldinho, Thierry Henry, Patrick Vieira, Samuel Eto'o, Claude Makelele, Rio Ferdinand, Bacary Sagna, Kolo Toure, William Gallas, Ronaldo (the buck-toothed one w/ dodgy knees), Ashley Cole, Gilberto, Rivaldo, etc have some African heritage, but world soccer is hardly dominated by players of African descent.

Look at the semi-finalists in the last world cup -- Germany, Portugal, Italy & France. Really only France had significant #s of players of African descent (Portugal has a couple).

Likewise, Euro 2004 was contested b/n Portugal & Greece.

France, Italy, Holland & Portugal were semi-finalists at Euro 2000, and at World Cup 2002 you had Brazil, Germany, Turkey & South Korea. Again, really just Brazil with any players of African heritage.

Anyhow, that was one bizarre post CF...

Posted by soccer fan | March 31, 2008 4:15 PM

There is zero buzz for the NBA in any white or blue collar environment in the NOrtheast area. My friend and I played and watched hoop our whole life and nobody brings up NBA or even college anymore(and we are mostly big East alums).
One theory of mine about white players is this; even the good college ones(Van Horn, WallyS, Adam Morrison, Reddick etc) are so hyped up by Dickey V, Digger, Bilas that any team that drafts them must pay through the nose and blow their salary structure. This causes resentment and freezing out(and choking). They are all good players at half their salary but they are too disruptive. Better get a Euro or Argentine player for 35 cents on the dollar that gets you 8 p and 6 reb and is not a target of fans, opponents and teammates. If Hansborough and Love do as well as Scolo or Oberto i would be shocked- yet they will be paided 3 times as much

Posted by art | April 11, 2008 3:03 PM