Dleague getting to Pre-Isaiah CBA status??

[jjbballfan]

I ask this question after a great opening weekend. The expansion Mad Ants had a record reported attendance of over 7,000, the Skyforce had over 6,000 the Vipers had over 5,000 in attendance..... I know that it was just opening day but it appears that with reported season ticket sales of a number of clubs the record pace of assigned NBA players put in with what appears to be great expansion clubs is the Dleague better or atleast close to what the CBA was in the mid-90's... I don't know but if it keeps up I would expect so.

[sky1]

I was at the Sioux Falls Skyforce game tonight the president of the dnba was there and said it was sold out. I think it is starting to come back since isai thomas messed it up. It was a lot of fun even if we lost.

[jjbballfan]

I kinda laugh though at the whole situation because the Dleague is exacually what Isaiah wanted with the CBA, younger players, and affiliated teams..... Isaiah is an idiot though because he tried to hustle Stern and you just don't do that...... All I hope is that Stern doesn't screw this up, keep the teams west of Appalation Mountains, keep them in remote cities and this league will thrive, move it back east or put them in urban areas and you got problems, in this day and age does it matter if you have your affiliate 90 miles away or 1000.

[mzracing76]

Actually, most of the time, Attendance on opening night is high. but most of the time, your average attendance will average about 1000-1500 fans fewer than your opening night. so expect Sioux Falls to average around 4000-5000 fans a game this year.

I think it will take some time to back to where the CBA was from 1985-1995. the average league wide attendance was 3500 per game (16 teams x 28 home games) for a total of 1,568,000 fans a year. I beleive 1994-95 topped out at around 1,900,000 fans as we had 8 of the 16 teams that year average 3500 or greater, 5 teams (Sioux Falls, Rapid City, Oklahoma City, Mexico City, Fort Wayne) average 4,000 fans or more, and 3 teams (Rapid City, Sioux Falls, and Fort Wayne) average 5,000 or more fans. With Rapid City averaging 6,000 + Fans for the year.

My Goal: to have the NBDL and the CBA both drawing good fan bases, and make Minor League Basketball in general a great place to be.

The CBA had 7 teams draw 4,000 to 6,000 fans on opening night, so we will see. Pittsburgh surprised me, they had 3500 fans for game 1.


So, the NBDL has 14 teams right? so hopefully we can have a league wide average attendance of around 2500 fans a game to bring the yearly total to about 875,000 fans. that is a good goal for the year. and hopefully we have 3-4 teams that can average 3500 fans or more this year.

MZ

[bectond]

The Reno Bighorns had 4 former NBA players on their roster and could not make it to the D-league finals. Last Night the Iowa Energy had 14K fans in attendance for game 2 of the D-league finals. I think the D-league has reached old CBA levels in both talent level and Fan support.

[PaulD]

It's not smart to make decisions based on generalizations like the D League should not expand east of the appalachians. Look at the Maine Red Claws they have been in existance for two years and they have sold out every game. Their first year of existance they were second in the league in corporate sponsors. Now here comes a new arena with more seats and comfortable seats. http://www.pressherald.com/news/builders-plan-event-complex_2011-04-28.html

[va_b]

let's all hope that it will all come back to what was the CBA before. we have good teams and players and they will be the reasons why people will start watching the games.