Discussion from game thread about Hawks attendance

[Sothron]

Almost all the Hawks fans I know in Georgia are not in Atlanta or close to it. Most of them are spread throughout the state. It has been years now but when the Hawks came to Columbus, Ga where I live as a preseason game it was packed to the gills in the arena to watch them play.

[JETSET]

I live in Macon and have been to 3 games so far this season. Planning on going to a 4th before the end of the year. The Hawks fan attendance has always been pretty weak other than a few playoff series. At the same time though, the damn organization and Sports South need to get it together and air every game. How in the hell are you going to air some crappy college game over the Hawks and they do this routinely. The best way to increase the fan base is to put the product on display, but they would rather cut costs and play some crappy game that no one is going to watch.

[IheartVolt]

Fans in Atlanta have always sucked.. Falcons home gamew used to be the same way , lots of empty seats , but luckyfor them Arthur Blank knows a good deal about promotion.. New owners are needed but that also would be a scary situationwith Seattle screaming for a team.

[Admin]

The simple truth is their aren't a lot of Hawks fans in Atlanta. People love the football and baseball. Hoops? Not so much. When we play big market teams their fans come out. If we find a way to attract these fans the attendance will rise. This brand of basketball is a nice start. Getting the player out there would be another. The Hawks don't do enough promotion. Most people don't even know when they have a game. Blame it on the team and not the fans.

I've heard that before that the Hawks don't do much promotion around the city and that's just sad. I can't imagine how people in a basketball mecca like Atlanta wouldn't just love basketball. I mean seriously there should be tons of fans who just want to go see professional basketball, even if they aren't Hawks fans. The team certainly seems to share the blame for not promoting them right but at the end of the day it's on the fans for not showing up as there's no way that the people of Atlanta don't know they have a basketball team.

[Admin]

Almost all the Hawks fans I know in Georgia are not in Atlanta or close to it. Most of them are spread throughout the state. It has been years now but when the Hawks came to Columbus, Ga where I live as a preseason game it was packed to the gills in the arena to watch them play.

Wasn't it like that when they had to play at the GT arena as well? I don't remember how long ago that was but it seemed like we had sellouts there.

[mtnbayou]

I don't know if this means anything, but Falcons fans have been ranked near the bottom in the NFL as well. Something in the water perhaps?The Hawks are a really fun team to watch. I feel bad for the players. If I was a big time free agent, not sure I'd want to play for a team who can only fill 1/3 of the arena - when the team is a THREE seed currently.

[Sothron]

Wasn't it like that when they had to play at the GT arena as well? I don't remember how long ago that was but it seemed like we had sellouts there.

Yes, I believe every time the Hawks have moved around and played somewhere else they got a huge sellout in response. I really wish they could schedule more games around the state to drive up more interest.

[Sothron]

I've heard that before that the Hawks don't do much promotion around the city and that's just sad. I can't imagine how people in a basketball mecca like Atlanta wouldn't just love basketball. I mean seriously there should be tons of fans who just want to go see professional basketball, even if they aren't Hawks fans. The team certainly seems to share the blame for not promoting them right but at the end of the day it's on the fans for not showing up as there's no way that the people of Atlanta don't know they have a basketball team.

Atlanta is either third, fifth or seventh in NBA total revenue in America. It goes up or down but every metric the NBA shares or some other outside company does for them shows time and time again that Atlanta is a top ten at minimum city for NBA fans and viewers. People know the Hawks are in Atlanta. They just choose not to go to the games. Which I agree with you is sad.

[Guest]

What facts are sooooo different about the situation in Atlanta than they are in other cities? I don't see anything that shows that Atlanta fans are responding like other fans. I mean we are 2nd to last in home attendance and there is zero excuse for that. None! I'm sorry but these are all just excuses as to why more fans don't show up and many of the ones who do show up don't get there until the 2nd half. The Hawks and Atlanta are not a unique and special butterfly. The fans don't go through anything that fans in New York, LA, Brooklyn, Houston, etc. etc. fans don't go through to get to a game. Their fans don't get off of work early. They've got to go home and pick up kids. Their ticket prices are more than the Hawks, traffic is just as bad, etc. etc. There is no excuse for attendance in Atlanta to be so piss poor. Most of the residents are just apathetic about the team and only show up to support superstar players and popular teams and guess what, when those teams are in town somehow the fans are magically able to go to the games and get there on time and they're even paying a lot more for tickets, but the problem is they're cheering for the visiting team. Nothing is going to change my mind and make me think that if people (other than diehards) in Atlanta cared about the team that they wouldn't have much better attendance.

Sigh. This is the type of post that is typical of the narrative of bad fans in Atlanta. This type of post has been beaten down time and time again on this board with actual facts about how Atlanta is set up and what we should expect. Examples? I know Niremetal has discussed the transit and transplant issues relevant to Atlanta multiple times:

http://hawksquawk.net/community/topic/347346-is-this-a-championship-level-fan-base/page-2#entry449848

http://hawksquawk.net/community/topic/350373-hawks-being-too-passive-in-free-agent-market/#entry468461

^Those have to do with the ineptitude of Atlanta's Urban/Regional Planning that contribute to the awful traffic to the game. Let me ask you Dolf, when was the last time you spent time on the Connector to get to the Williams St Exit for the game? Or maybe you are coming from the other side and need to get off at Central Ave? Or possibly you are coming from I-20 and get off at the Spring Street Exit? Whatever the case may be, all the routes have horrible traffic. Do you know this? Or are you just taking a guess from Houston? This isn't meant as an insult, this is meant to illustrate that you do not understand the costs since you haven't driven in Atlanta to go to a game in Philips Arena.

Then there have been those that debunk the market size myth:

http://hawksquawk.net/community/topic/343713-if-we-dont-make-a-move-were-giving-up-on-this-season/page-4#entry431604

This exact scenario was also touched on by lw3 a few years ago:

The party-town factor is what brings fans out to see the likes of current/former mega-stars and potential "club VIPs" (Shaq, AI, LeBron, Wade, etc) and is what brings people to Philips on entertaining Friday/Saturday night matchups ("nightclub warmups"). The Hawks benefitted from a great number of Friday night contests over the past two months.

The transplant factor will draw guys like me once/twice a year to display faux allegiance to a team from a major media-market with some semblance of a storied, multi-generational history (Lakers, Celtics, Sixers, Knicks, Bulls, Pistons). The predominance of such "fans" are NOT from towns in our current division (Charlotte, Orlando, Miami), and if they're from DC wouldn't show unless there's a sincere interest in seeing a retiring MJ or healthy Arenas. The SE division makes up a major number of home games, but it is too new to have engrained rivalries of interest to anyone. You didn't grow up hatin' on the Bobcats, so you're indifferent when they come to town.

Those party-town and transplant factors are not strong enough to attract fans for the Wendesday-nights-against-the-Clippers games. It is those games where the strength of the home team's product combined with the sustained local trust factor in the owners and management (ex. Cuban) has to be self-evident... before you can build a reliable season-ticket base, before people commit to anything more than one or two games a year.

As for trust, for many who were Hawks fans from the cradle, the Nique factor is still strong, too. A significant number of those adolescents/young adults strung along during the Hawks' contending years in the 80s/early 90s that would be the current disposable-income fanbase swore off the Hawks (and still do) after Nique got traded. I don't dare bring up the Hawks at my barbershop, unless I wanna wind up with a 'do like Brandon Jennings'.

~lw3

http://hawksquawk.net/community/topic/343713-if-we-dont-make-a-move-were-giving-up-on-this-season/page-5#entry431734

I mean, all this stuff has been touched on. I am not even quoting my own material on this matter where I really rail after the pricing that we have for tickets as well as the expected demand and what the correct response should be. All of this fan behavior is explainable, where as a story that claims our fans "suck" is a story that *somehow* our fans perform worse than expected. We don't perform worse than expected. Our fans don't suck. And complaining about them not showing up is lazy and is just like what the A$G did a few years ago of complaining about our fans. The A$G seem to be changing on this from when Gearon Junior pulled the:

"We have piled tens of millions of dollars into this product to make it good. But it’s also up to fans to show up and see your team and support your team. I think we’ve given them a product as exciting as any in the league. You want people to be there, you want them to support your team and be proud of it. I think we have a team that deserves that.”

http://blogs.ajc.com/hawks/2010/05/19/atlanta-hawks-why-j-j-may-be-more-worth-more-than-you-think-to-the-hawks/

[Admin]

Sigh. Show me how Atlanta are more unique than 28 other teams who all have better attendance than Atlanta. Atlanta problems are not unique to Atlanta. Just more excuses.

Bottom line, this team has been to the playoffs 7 straight years. The owners have spent over the cap for how many straight of those years? We are the #3 seed in the playoffs. Fans STILL DON'T SHOW UP. #realtalk

[Guest]

Sigh. Show me how Atlanta are more unique than 28 other teams who all have better attendance than Atlanta. Atlanta problems are not unique to Atlanta. Just more excuses.

Bottom line, this team has been to the playoffs 7 straight years. The owners have spent over the cap for how many straight of those years? We are the #3 seed in the playoffs. Fans STILL DON'T SHOW UP. #realtalk

OK if you aren't going to take any time to read what I posted or what has been posted on this topic then you clearly do not want to understand the issue because all of that is explained.

And in unrelated but kind of related news that I just saw:

Tweet Added - Refresh Page to see it live!

">If you don't see the Tweet here AFTER REFRESHING PAGE, then it wasn't entered correctly. Please edit and try again.

Important: If the Tweet doesn't load, please refresh the page before editing the Tweet as it may need to refresh to parse properly

[Admin]

OK if you aren't going to take any time to read what I posted or what has been posted on this topic then you clearly do not want to understand the issue because all of that is explained.

And in unrelated but kind of related news that I just saw:

No I understand the excuses from the Atlanta side as they've been regurgitated dozens of times. I want to see posts about how easy it is in other cities for fans to get to games. I mean the fans must be able to leave work early to get home to get their families, traffic must be non-existent, ticket prices must be extremely cheap, they must have simple mass transit systems, etc. etc. All I can tell you from experience is that it's every bit as difficult and expensive to see a Rockets game and yet they have no trouble at all getting butts in the seats.

And also, tell me what's changed this year that we are DOWN 2,000 fans per game on average at home this year. What's changed?

[Guest]

No I understand the excuses from the Atlanta side as they've been regurgitated dozens of times. I want to see posts about how easy it is in other cities for fans to get to games. I mean the fans must be able to leave work early to get home to get their families, traffic must be non-existent, ticket prices must be extremely cheap, they must have simple mass transit systems, etc. etc. All I can tell you from experience is that it's every bit as difficult and expensive to see a Rockets game and yet they have no trouble at all getting butts in the seats.

And also, tell me what's changed this year that we are DOWN 2,000 fans per game on average at home this year. What's changed?

No. None of those arguments are saying that other teams have extremely cheap tickets or that other teams have the opposite effects of attendance than Atlanta. Those topics are trying to give a more clear picture of *all the factors* that affect Atlanta. Lazy analysis says "ATL has XXX population, they should have YYY attendance!" Well, yes that is true but if you do not factor in all of the other relevant factors then that does not make sense.

One cannot point to Atlanta and say X is the reason for low attendance, that is what I am trying to point out. Do you look at a potential basketball player and say "Hey dude, look at his height! He will be great because of the height!"??? If you do, then you would like Pavel Podkolzin and stink at analysis because you just forgot about the multitude of other factors that do matter.

Why is this now turning into an analysis of the team attendance for this year? This is a game thread on the Hawks-Kings. Which was a Wednesday f***ing night game against an unmarketable team in what was speculated to be a shitty game back in September. But I don't know, if you want to figure out what has changed from last year to this year then maybe you should start at ticket prices. But na, lets just assume our fans suck and that is the only cause? (last year our FCI: http://www.fancostexperience.com/pages/fcx/fci_pdfs/9.pdf at $233.00 but this year $240.04 http://www.fancostexperience.com/pages/fcx/blog_pdfs/entry0000042_pdf000.pdf)

***A problem with this board is individuals thinking that I am saying ONLY price matters. Not saying that at all. Other factors are also important. But one thing I know that has changed is...price. So put that as one of many reasons why our attendance is down.

[coachx]

Last night was my 1st game of the season and it was the worse traffic I ever seen driving to Atlanta. I'm about 50 miles NE of Atlanta up I85. The traffic was consistently bad for the entire 50 miles.

It took a full 2 hours to get there in stop and go. That kind of traffic for 2 hours can be stresser. I left at 5 and got their at 7. JackB1 even called me and said he was considering turning around b/c the traffic was so bad. He ended up coming..........but just telling it like it is.

I've lived here for 35 years and the traffic is just getting worse.

Most of the fans who attend Braves games live 25-60 miles from the city. The Braves came up with a detailed map of their where their single ticket sales go. I assume that map is probably similar to the Hawks.

Another issue are all the bums. They don't bother me. I graduated from GSU, in downtown, and am used to them. They hang out in the CNN Center and take up tables in the food court as they beg. For those who don't live in Atlanta, but follow the team. The CNN Center is connected to Phillips Arena and is where a tone of fans go for food and drinks before the game. The bums there scare people off and make them feel uncomfortable. I actually gave some money to an old man last night and gave another guy a dinner. I feel for them but they hurt image of downtown. You don't have this issue in Charlotte at all.

Edited December 19, 2013 by coachx

[lethalweapon3]

It's Atlanta. The only people that rightfully worry about in-arena attendance is A$G. With the media revenue so strong in this market, not even the NBA hierarchy harbors any anxiety on Atlanta's relative place in the attendance standings. The poor Kings announcers can't understand that, since they still wax poetically about the days when they were satisfied with filling up their tuna can for the team that was the best plankton around for the Lakers.

We're Atlanta. We LOVE the NBA. We like the Hawks. We LOVE and LOATHE other storied and/or big-market teams, and/or All-NBA First-Team talent with high Q-ratings that the media and corporate conglomerates spoonfeed to us.

We like Al Horford and Paul Millsap and Kyle Korver and Jeff Teague. Nice guys. I'm sure they all love their mothers. Real swell bunch. As Charles Barkley put it as succinctly as anyone ever did, "They're a nice team." Full stop.

We LOVE, or LOATHE, Kobe and New York Melo and D-Rose and KD and LBJ.

"Like" gets you an occasional peek or two on TV or in the local paper, maybe a Twitter connection if you're lucky. "LOVE" and "LOATHE" gets you die-hard fans and live-hard haters paying hard-earned money to scream at you from a few yards away.

It's Atlanta. We love TV and social media and our comfy oft-oversized home dwellings even more than all those things. After a long day putting up with workcrap and stewing in traffic, we love nothing more than to sit back in the Barcalounger, give the gas tank a rest, pop on the bigscreen HDTV and flip channels BETWEEN NBA games, then chat it up in real time with scores of 'friends' on Facebook/Twitter/Cornster/whatever. Everybody's NBA market in the country is like that. We Atlantans just seem to enjoy it more than pretty much everyone. We can fuss about the Hawks, Walking Dead, the Knicks, Duck Dynasty, the Lakers, and Real Housewives just clicking from one tab to the next, just switching from one channel to the next. Why bother to get up?

It's Atlanta. Not enough positive history and legacy to have dyed-in-the-wool allegiances built up over the decades, not enough daddies around and willing to invest in getting the kiddies to follow their hometown team, instead of the one daddy grew up cheering. Apologies to all you mommies out there.

When the narrative becomes, convincingly, "Get downtown to the game, everyone, because if you don't, you just might miss seeing an Atlanta Hawk doing something special live and in-person," you'll get more attendance. "Get downtown to the game, everyone, because if you don't, we just might pack up and move out to Snellville, or Seattle, someday," won't get the job done.

It's Atlanta. There's not that iconic player with a national media-driven profile, that has won big games in this town, that's worth shilling out for 40 plus games per year. The closest thing we had to one of those guys (especially had he beaten Larry Bird and the Celtics, and made at least a Conference Finals or two), we shipped him off for a Danny Manning rental during the very year he had his best chance to break through. Biggest and most memorable NBA win in his career is what? Against who? Exactly. I'll stay home and wait for his highlights on SportsCenter.

There hasn't been That Guy that compels a transplant put his/her other team's jersey on mothballs for good, and come to see Him instead. The guy everyone wants to know the next day if you saw Him do That Thing He Did Last Night live, and in 3-D living color.

When that individual arrives, shows out, AND gets the big wins, AND gets the national commercial appeal, only then will you routinely see tens of thousands of people abandoning their pets and significant others and Barcaloungers and flatscreens and online acquaintances at home on rainy Tuesday evenings, busting through traffic and risking an occasional shady encounter on the streets to shove their fannies into the Highlight Factory seats. On time.

~lw3

[Admin]

No. None of those arguments are saying that other teams have extremely cheap tickets or that other teams have the opposite effects of attendance than Atlanta. Those topics are trying to give a more clear picture of *all the factors* that affect Atlanta. Lazy analysis says "ATL has XXX population, they should have YYY attendance!" Well, yes that is true but if you do not factor in all of the other relevant factors then that does not make sense.

One cannot point to Atlanta and say X is the reason for low attendance, that is what I am trying to point out. Do you look at a potential basketball player and say "Hey dude, look at his height! He will be great because of the height!"??? If you do, then you would like Pavel Podkolzin and stink at analysis because you just forgot about the multitude of other factors that do matter.

Why is this now turning into an analysis of the team attendance for this year? This is a game thread on the Hawks-Kings. Which was a Wednesday f***ing night game against an unmarketable team in what was speculated to be a shitty game back in September. But I don't know, if you want to figure out what has changed from last year to this year then maybe you should start at ticket prices. But na, lets just assume our fans suck and that is the only cause? (last year our FCI: http://www.fancostexperience.com/pages/fcx/fci_pdfs/9.pdf at $233.00 but this year $240.04 http://www.fancostexperience.com/pages/fcx/blog_pdfs/entry0000042_pdf000.pdf)

***A problem with this board is individuals thinking that I am saying ONLY price matters. Not saying that at all. Other factors are also important. But one thing I know that has changed is...price. So put that as one of many reasons why our attendance is down.

So $7 difference is the reason we are down 2,000 fans per game.... riight. And even still last year's 15k were still pitiful. Atlanta hasn't had attendance even hit an average of 17k since at least before 2001 so what's the excuse there?

A problem I'm having here with yours and others arguments are that you guys seem to think that these problems are unique to Atlanta and they aren't and yet other teams fans show up to support them, even when their teams are shitty. The Hawks have been in the playoffs 7 years in a row and we're the #3 seed this year and play the most exciting team basketball that we've played in forever and fans still aren't showing up to support the team. That will never change in Atlanta, no matter how good the team is they will never get game to game support like most other teams get.

[Admin]

Lethal I might be able to buy that argument if it weren't said time and time again how attendance sucked even during the Nique days and he was one of those most loved players nationwide and on any given night might do something special. So I don't think getting a player we LOVE is going to change that. I just don't.

[Admin]

BTW last nights reported attendance was 10k. In Josh Smith's return game to Atlanta, the guy who many LOVED and many LOATHED, we had our average 13k attendance, which is still pathetic and 2nd worst in the league. When we played the Clippers with Chris Paul and Blake Griffin we had 12k in attendance. Both of those were Wednesday night games against teams and stars much brighter than the Kings and still there was very little difference in the sad, sad numbers.

[lethalweapon3]

Lethal I might be able to buy that argument if it weren't said time and time again how attendance sucked even during the Nique days and he was one of those most loved players nationwide and on any given night might do something special. So I don't think getting a player we LOVE is going to change that. I just don't.

Re-read that Nique part and the last para. You gotta do a lot more than bring home a dunk contest trophy or two in this town.

~lw3

[Admin]

Re-read that Nique part and the last para. You gotta do a lot more than bring home a dunk contest trophy or two in this town.

~lw3

We won over 50 games and took the Celtics to 7 games and were always contenders. If your argument is that we have to win an NBA championship to get fans in the seats then that says all you need to know about the fans in Atlanta.