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New Study Finds HEAT Fans Most Loyal in NBA

By admin
Wednesday, April 17th, 2013

For years now Miami fans have been the subject of many jokes. We’ve been called fairweather, front-running, late-arriving and many other nonsensical terms by opposing fan bases. But according to a study done by Brand Keys Sports Fan Loyalty Index, we are the most loyal fan base in all of the NBA.

Jumping up 5 spots from last year, we are now considered to be the most loyal fan base The parameters of this test we’re Entertainment, Authenticity, Fan Bonding, and History & Tradition.

Top-5- 2013 2012

1. Miami Heat (#6)

2. San Antonio Spurs (#1)

3. New York Knicks (#10)

4. Boston Celtics (#2)

5. Oklahoma City Thunder/

Brooklyn Nets (#5 and #14)

Bottom-5 2013 2012

30. Charlotte Bobcats (#30)

29. Sacramento Kings (#29)

28. Minnesota Timberwolves (#27)

27. Washington Wizards (#26)

26. Cleveland Cavaliers (#22)

Recently Heat fans have been under attack (mainly because no one can say anything about our team) and all we can say to that is DON’T HATE MIAMI!!


http://www.donthatemiami.com/news/new-s ... al-in-nba/

Before anyone jumps on anyone here - there are a few questions I'd like to understand

- How in the world do they rate and figure loyalty in terms of statistics?
- What did they study consist of and what data was compiled?
- Never knew such a study even existed

I mean I don't get it, these clowns act like we just got a good team. We've good teams in the 90's, heck we've had one of the all time greats at C before that injury derailed his career, my dude Timmy, Eddie Jones, we've had some notable players. They're just pissed off because Wade got Lebron and Bosh to team with him. We've had Shaq, Wade brought the championship back to south beach in 06......

We have good fans, sure Lebron brought a bunch of new fans but hey every power house team does. I'm willing to bet that Magic Johnson and Kobe brought "life long Laker fans", Larry rekindled those Boston fans, oh and Chicago fans? give me a break, they all came in droves with JORDAN and never left, now they have Rose ect ect....

All I know is everyone bonded together during that disgusting 15 win season, I still remember all the epic Chris Quinn jokes.

We've have good fans....and I take us over everybody else "At the top it's just us"................ eff everybody else

This study is flawed if you look at the questions that were asked - it should be a marketing/merchandise study as opposed to Loyalty

RunSunRun wrote:Straight from their website : (http://brandkeys.com/about-us/passionat ... r-loyalty/)

What is customer loyalty? Loyal customers:

Purchase your products and services again and again over time.
Increase the volume of their purchases.
Buy beyond traditional purchases, across available product lines.
Refer your company’s products and services to others.
Become immune to the pull of the competition.
Give your company the benefit of the doubt.

So, if customer loyalty = buying of good/merchandise, than yeah, this makes complete sense.

It's a pretty dumb survey - if their intention was to determine loyalty.

Maybe so but I still meant what I said lol

We da best!!

No way. I have been a heat fan since i can remember. Back to alonzo and timmy days, and even i have to laugh at this. Not to mention it's by a site called don't hate miami. No one better post this in the general board.

Heat_Fan_87 wrote:No way. I have been a heat fan since i can remember. Back to alonzo and timmy days, and even i have to laugh at this. Not to mention it's by a site called don't hate miami. No one better post this in the general board.

\

Flash3 already posted on the GB about this. It had expected reactions.

Marlins fans right now are more loyal honestly, the ones who STILL go to marlins games... while they should be boycotting Loria and his goons.

Dolphins fan should get a medal

I did read it's about merchandise, it's not a very good measure of real loyalty.

A better measure of "loyalty" is to look at attendance numbers during "failure" seasons of the franchise.

Pretty much already covered but yeah merchandising and popularity during high point =/= loyalty. My hope is that if the Lebron/Wade/Bosh era continues with a few more rings that we will become a more stable fanbase and have sold out arena even bad seasons.

With that said, Fins have had some **** seasons but last year was good IMO. I hate baseball (sorry can't stand the sport) so can't say anything about the Marlins. I'm actually pretty excited for next years football season, should at least be entertaining.

Marty Conlon and Matt Fish.. you know those names. You a HEAT fan.

LOL

i dont agree with this article but we do have a great fanbase. particularly those who watched HEAT ball in the mid 90s. its a shame our best fans usually cant afford to go to the games. i swear half the people sitting in the lower bowl are employees that win raffles from companies and its usually people who dont care for bball

Altered_Beast wrote:i dont agree with this article but we do have a great fanbase. particularly those who watched HEAT ball in the mid 90s. its a shame our best fans usually cant afford to go to the games. i swear half the people sitting in the lower bowl are employees that win raffles from companies and its usually people who dont care for bball

I hate this line of reasoning that "true fans" use.

Even when lower bowl tickets were (relatively) cheap, as they were in Caron's rookie year, the true fans still didn't buy the available tickets. As I've mentioned before, the sections were so empty that year they had to pool fans to fill up one section so that they could shoot a commercial that year.

Additionally if someone is willing to pay a lot more for something why would they not deserve it more than people who aren't willing to pay for it?

I also reject the notion that "our best fans usually can't afford to go to the games". Yeah you can't drink champagne courtside at the finals but Heat tickets are relatively affordable compared to how high they could be. If this team was in LA or New York tickets would be multiple times higher.

Standing Room tickets were $20 in previous runs. This one they are going for $55 right now. 300 level sideline seats are going for $65. And that's on the secondary market. Watch the first quarter nearby and swoop in and buy off the unsold tickets the scalpers are trying to get rid of if someone really needs a deal.

Almost any working adult could afford that if they prioritized the purchase. And if they can't they probably should be working during the game instead of watching it anyway.

Overall our fanbase sucks but that's why us "employees who win raffles" can get our lower level tickets for much cheaper than we would if we were in another city with this same team.

I'm sure this will come off as elitist but I just get annoyed by the tired line of thinking. This isn't really directed at you, but more the position. Today people were complaining that I wouldn't "hook them up enough" with seats for the Bucks.

Even when I was sitting in $10 seats (which I would sneak down from of course), I never resented those who paid more for better seats. If they weren't willing to do so back then, we wouldn't have a team now.

What they measured was http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brand_loyalty
It is a marketing concept, it has nothing to do with sports. They just measured it for the brand "Miami Heat". They could have done the same for a brand of socks.

GreenHat wrote:

Altered_Beast wrote:i dont agree with this article but we do have a great fanbase. particularly those who watched HEAT ball in the mid 90s. its a shame our best fans usually cant afford to go to the games. i swear half the people sitting in the lower bowl are employees that win raffles from companies and its usually people who dont care for bball

I hate this line of reasoning that "true fans" use.

Even when lower bowl tickets were (relatively) cheap, as they were in Caron's rookie year, the true fans still didn't buy the available tickets. As I've mentioned before, the sections were so empty that year they had to pool fans to fill up one section so that they could shoot a commercial that year.

Additionally if someone is willing to pay a lot more for something why would they not deserve it more than people who aren't willing to pay for it?

I also reject the notion that "our best fans usually can't afford to go to the games". Yeah you can't drink champagne courtside at the finals but Heat tickets are relatively affordable compared to how high they could be. If this team was in LA or New York tickets would be multiple times higher.

Standing Room tickets were $20 in previous runs. This one they are going for $55 right now. 300 level sideline seats are going for $65. And that's on the secondary market. Watch the first quarter nearby and swoop in and buy off the unsold tickets the scalpers are trying to get rid of if someone really needs a deal.

Almost any working adult could afford that if they prioritized the purchase. And if they can't they probably should be working during the game instead of watching it anyway.

Overall our fanbase sucks but that's why us "employees who win raffles" can get our lower level tickets for much cheaper than we would if we were in another city with this same team.

I'm sure this will come off as elitist but I just get annoyed by the tired line of thinking. This isn't really directed at you, but more the position. Today people were complaining that I wouldn't "hook them up enough" with seats for the Bucks.

Even when I was sitting in $10 seats (which I would sneak down from of course), I never resented those who paid more for better seats. If they weren't willing to do so back then, we wouldn't have a team now.

i dont see what point you are trying to make. first off i didnt say those who pay to sit in lower level sections dont deserve to sit there. thats absurd. i said a lot of our best fans cannot afford to go to heat games and its the truth.

as for the lower bowl comment i stand by what i said. ive been to a couple of games sitting in excellent seats in the lower bowl. by my experience half the people ive spoken to/sat next to are the aforementioned "raffle" winners. im not knocking them AT ALL. if your a heat fan and you score tickets in the lower bowl for free youd be an idiot not to accept them. what im saying is companies like to gobble up rows of seats in the lower bowl and a lot of times the folks who win these raffles are not actively interested in the miami heat. i dont like that practice is all.

I mean I stuck it out from the Miami arena, to the the bad years pre-Wade, to the bad years post Shaq. My loyalty will never leave.

load of crap.

Miami fans (generally) wouldn't rate in the top half of the league for most loyal fanbase.

Loyalty can only be truly judged when things aren't going well, look at attendances and posts then and that will show you the most loyal.

On RealGM I'd say the Raptors fans were by far the most loyal fanbase.