Attendance

[Strong Island Sound]

I am curious as to attendance throughout the ABA. Please try to keep this serious and not some mud-slinging sarcastic rant. And if applicable, comparisons from past seasons.

If you can also state the home venue and capacity of that building, and the largest crowd of the season and average number. Especially for people that have been at more than one game.

I have been to a few different buildings traveling with the Sound and have seen good and bad crowds. Just looking from some input from the other posters. Thanks.

[Fells]

I am curious as to attendance throughout the ABA. Please try to keep this serious and not some mud-slinging sarcastic rant. And if applicable, comparisons from past seasons.

If you can also state the home venue and capacity of that building, and the largest crowd of the season and average number. Especially for people that have been at more than one game.

I have been to a few different buildings traveling with the Sound and have seen good and bad crowds. Just looking from some input from the other posters. Thanks.

Joe,

The Frost Heaves averaged about 80 percent of capacity between the two venues. Don't quote me on this(Man, talk about a reversal of roles), but I think the Aud in Barre seats 1,700 and Memorial Auditorium in Burlington about 1,400.

[The Sweeper]

You're right about the Memorial, Chris. I think a Heaves press release put the Aud at 1650 (but what's 50 people?), although there was over 2000 at the championship game.

I believe the Pierre Charbonneau Center (Montreal) seats 2700, or there abouts. I think I read it over at frozenhoops.

[dclarke69]

The OC has not played yet but for what is is worth, our venue will seat about 1800 (the venue will be annouced within the next week to ten days).

We have over 200 season ticket requests already with the plans becvcoming available on-line on or around May 1st.

We'll see.

[tbayz1]

Buffalo Rapids 05-06:

First Permanant Venue- Erie Community College seats 3000+ and innagural home opener had a sell out the second game there i believe had 1000-2000 ppl, but then our old owner didnt pay the bills and we got kicked out and the current owners took over and we played at the 250 bleacher style seating gym, The Park School for the rest of the season until the last home game we drew 1500 at Buffalo State College and a Playoff game at Hilbert College where we had over 800 in attendence


Buffalo Silverbacks 06-07:

Home venue except for 2 games due to scheduling problems and the idea of seeing what kind of attendence they would get out of the city of Buffalo itself, anyway the majority of the games were played at Buffalo State College which seats close to 4000, season high 1300(free admission) then from the avg was 400-600 a game, depended on weather, time and day of game, and if the Sabres were playing, last 2 games of the year one at Iroquois HS which drew 500-600 and the season finale at the Park School where there was close to 400, the last 2 games, all new fans witnessed some great basketball and were very excited and liked what they saw


Any Ques on the Silverbacks?? I'll try and do my best of answering them!

[besl]

You can get a pretty good idea of attendance for the ABA's west coast teams by looking at the box scores on Bellingham's statistics page: http://www.bellinghamslam.com/statistics.htm

The only west coast venues Bellingham did not visit were Hollywood and Gallup, so their numbers are not available. As for everyone else, you can see that most west coast teams have trouble drawing fans.

[WHAFAN]

In my opinion, if your any kind of a minor sports league or team and can't draw at least 1000 people to a game, your pathetic. I've gone to girls high school volleyball games where the gym had at least 1200 people in it. To consider yourself a pro league and have attendances in double figures is a lost cause. This rec-league will never change or improve. I'd rather spend my $5 watching a high school game where at least there isn't corruption, lying, deceipt, disappearing acts, broken promises and Joe Newman's big toupee getting in the way of operations. Even schools in my area with very little enrollment draw big crowds for games. If I owned a team and drew 50 people to a game, I'd jump off a bridge. What can happen between now and next season to improve crowds? Nothing, because this rec-league is so ill-run, nothing will improve. They had 7 years to do so, and this is the result??

[jamesaba]

In my opinion, if your any kind of a minor sports league or team and can't draw at least 1000 people to a game, your pathetic. I've gone to girls high school volleyball games where the gym had at least 1200 people in it. To consider yourself a pro league and have attendances in double figures is a lost cause. This rec-league will never change or improve. I'd rather spend my $5 watching a high school game where at least there isn't corruption, lying, deceipt, disappearing acts, broken promises and Joe Newman's big toupee getting in the way of operations. Even schools in my area with very little enrollment draw big crowds for games. If I owned a team and drew 50 people to a game, I'd jump off a bridge. What can happen between now and next season to improve crowds? Nothing, because this rec-league is so ill-run, nothing will improve. They had 7 years to do so, and this is the result??

So much for avoiding "mud-slinging sarcastic rants"....I guess he's bitter for the ABA not selling his clocks...

High school volleyball games draw 1200 people not because their exciting but because the families and friends of all the participants come to watch. If the audience of an ABA game was all families and friends of the ABA players, the bashers would make fun of that saying they can't draw any spectators.

The size of the crowd needed depends on the budget of the team. A team on a 100,000 budget can survive on 500 fans a game at 10.00 a piece, which is 90k for just ticket sales. Many IBL, WBA, ABA, and USBL teams are run on a small budget like this.

So if they do and its fun for them and they want to do that's their business. If you don't like it, bugger off. Some teams that draw 50 people are owned by big corporations or wealthy individuals and they just have fun doing it.

But you'd worship an NBDL owner who loses 1 million dollars a season because he's "doing it right"!

[Pounder]

...and I know a couple people who could testify about the "purity" of even high school athletics.

School-based teams and pro are definitely apples and kiwis. Or oranges... papayas... rutabagas... coconuts... anyone having trouble with this?

[a1sports]

Strong Island has to post a question about attendance on the internet. To find out the sizes of venues and attendance.

AMAZING... so if it werent for the internet and keeping your fingers crossed that all the owners get on daily or maybe a fan or two will stop by OSC and will answer your question, you would have no idea?

See, this is why its a failure. NO busniess people at all. SO you cant pick up the phone and call the other teams and ask these questions?

You dont know in your own divison the size of the venue or the attendance?

UNREAL !!!!!! but this is the ABA !!

Ill give you a ball park anwer...highschool or community college gyms with about 25 people on average.

[WHAFAN]

I don't care if tickets to volleyball games are family and friends.....they still have to buy a ticket. With close to 100 high schools in the Chicago area, crowds are huge at sporting events, no matter which school you go to. When your in a one horse town with a pro team, there is no reason not to draw fans, unless of course your team is in the ABA, in which case no one cares less. I've been a fan of my high school athletics for the 4 years I attended, and the 25 years since I've been gone. Can anyone say that about an ABA team? These teams are counted in weeks and months of exsistance, not years. With this nonsense attendance, if one entire family comes down with the flu, your game attendance drops by 40%.........gimme a break with your rational.

[tbayz1]

You can get a pretty good idea of attendance for the ABA's west coast teams by looking at the box scores on Bellingham's statistics page: http://www.bellinghamslam.com/statistics.htm

The only west coast venues Bellingham did not visit were Hollywood and Gallup, so their numbers are not available. As for everyone else, you can see that most west coast teams have trouble drawing fans.

Yeah u got that right, the highest i think i saw from all of the Slam's away games, the highest was in Tiajuana w/ like 500 in attendence, but other than that most of the teams in California seem to be drawing 50-100 a game on avg, man i thought some of these teams would do a lil better than that and the Slam's attendence was up and down, from 800+ to like 100-300 a game then up to 500-700 a game than down then down a lil then back up to 800+ but still even the Slam's lowest crowds are better than prolly all of the west coast teams

[Strong Island Sound]

Strong Island has to post a question about attendance on the internet. To find out the sizes of venues and attendance.

AMAZING... so if it werent for the internet and keeping your fingers crossed that all the owners get on daily or maybe a fan or two will stop by OSC and will answer your question, you would have no idea?

See, this is why its a failure. NO busniess people at all. SO you cant pick up the phone and call the other teams and ask these questions?

You dont know in your own divison the size of the venue or the attendance?

UNREAL !!!!!! but this is the ABA !!

Ill give you a ball park anwer...highschool or community college gyms with about 25 people on average.

A1- you get so frustrated over a simple message board thread. Have you had your blood pressure checked recently?

As I stated in the opening post, I did travel to different venues and wanted to know the general attendance around the league. No, I did not make my way to California. The teams out west were not on our schedule.

But you did make at least one important point here- teams should have this information available. It should not have to be asked. But when you are dealing in leagues that do not have their own cable television network, some details do not make it out there. Is that right? No, but should not be totally unexpected.

You have to sit back and think before you start posting, A1. Minor league sports have flaws. Learn to accept it. Some leagues have more than others. I'll give you an example. Last season, the USBL had a team called the Long Island Primetime. Many of the Sound players from '05-'06 played with them. I was interested in following the guys that I knew, but it was impossible to do. The team had no website, and when I made attempts to contact them, my messages went unanswered.

There was some confusion as their first (& only) season was to start on even the team name. First, I heard from a podcast that they were to be known as the Gems. The USBL site only had them listed as Long Island. Later on, they were called the Primetime. Actually had a cool logo, too. They played their games in Queens. And recently, they were taken off the USBL schedule for this season. One & done.

So as you see, A1, things aren't always rosey in the tough world of ML hoops. You can have complaints when they are valid, but you lose much of the credibility that you seek when you mix facts with inaccuracies, such as 25 per game.

[besl]

Yeah u got that right, the highest i think i saw from all of the Slam's away games, the highest was in Tiajuana w/ like 500 in attendence, but other than that most of the teams in California seem to be drawing 50-100 a game on avg, man i thought some of these teams would do a lil better than that and the Slam's attendence was up and down, from 800+ to like 100-300 a game then up to 500-700 a game than down then down a lil then back up to 800+ but still even the Slam's lowest crowds are better than prolly all of the west coast teams

There are some pretty good pictures on Bellingham's site (in the Multimedia section) that show the different crowds the team experienced:

The good (Vermont):
http://www.bellinghamslam.com/multimedia/0607/2-10_3.jpg

The bad (Tijuana):
http://www.bellinghamslam.com/multimedia/0607/tijuana_3.jpg

And the ugly (Sacramento & Olympians at Azusa):
http://bellinghamslam.com/multimedia/sacramentogym.jpg
http://www.bellinghamslam.com/multimedia/beijinggym.jpg

My apologies for making this thread rather graphics intensive.

[Strong Island Sound]

Here's a shot from the Sound-Nighthawks game when Ming visited. Obviously, the crowd was much better than ususal due to the big man in town.
http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL1591/6874084/15826556/247050560.jpg

Here's a shot from a Sound home game versus Newark.
http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL1591/6874084/15826556/241434725.jpg

These were two games that stand out with having good attendance. But we did have other games this season where the crowd was encouraging and did get into the game by making a lot of noise. In this type of league, you have to take the good with the bad and try to make more good than bad.

[heavesrock]

I was in Contact with Ian McCarthy early in the year and he said about 100-250 for games usually around 150. I went a Rockstar game in December and there was about 150 people there.


Here's a couple Montreal Pics:

http://www.printroom.com/ViewGallery.asp?userid=rcrowley&gallery_id=562741


http://www.printroom.com/ViewGallery.asp?userid=rcrowley&gallery_id=628274

[tbayz1]

thanks for the pics, especially "besl" since i have never seen many pics of teams out west, and all i gota say for the teams out west's pics especially Sac & Beijing, is "wow." There is like a minute before game time in some pics and theyre lucky if there is 20 people there, man i thought when i went to Silverbacks games and there was 500 people that it was a terrible crowd and embarassing but i guess not lol, now i know 500 is not the ideal amount of fans and is gona pay ALL the bills, but its better than 20 hah