Delving into NBA Attendance by Team

The story of individual NBA team attendance is less straightforward than that of
baseball. Since attendance hovers around max capacity at 93% and arena sizes are
the smallest of the major sports, much depends on the capacity of the home venue
for each team in addition to the usual factors such as team success and market size.

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Thus, the team with the largest venue—the Chicago Bulls, who built the United
Center during the peak of Michael Jordan’s popularity—has the highest total
attendance and the highest average attendance. In fact, the 14 teams with the
highest total attendance yield the identical order in terms of average attendance.
These data suggest that other attendance statistics should be used to asses live
game team interest. For example, the Bulls have the 19th lowest minimum game
attendance at 17,462.
Indeed, the minimum attendance statistics point us in the direction of valid
exploration—variance. Incredibly, three NBA teams have sold out every game for
the past four seasons—the Cavs and Warriors as one would expect (especially since
Golden State plays in a very old arena with a relatively small capacity), along with
the Thunder. It’s clear then that consistency is the name of the game when it comes
to measuring NBA fan interest. As such, the ranking by variance yields an ordering
much more in line with expectations with popular teams in big markets with stars
or a history of winning leading the way.
Three NBA teams have unreal attendance.

NBA ATTENDANCE TABLE BY TEAM

With the NBA preseason starting up at the end of the next month, and the regular season a few weeks after that, be sure to check out a FanWide game watch party at a local bar or restaurant.