RealGM

I was gonna post in fa thread but it doesn't really fit. Not sure if thread-worthy but I just wanted to hear some of the smart folks here discuss the topic.
Will we still be second to last next year?
How does this drive decisions from Sarver?
Isnt there some sort of profit share in the NBA? Does that means teams can suck and still make the same money?
Nets were last place last year.. next year or two (when kd comes back) they could arguably become #1. Etc etc.

http://www.espn.com/nba/attendance

Also just saw the Knicks were 9th last year... so it kinda makes sense ownership is in no rush to get better. They're like "just sign anyone who cares we're NY"

Situation with the Knicks is that they own MSG and probably make a lot of money from non NBA events there. And they don’t have to share non-basketball revenues with the NBA.

They also own a big venue in LA to put on concerts, which is why they’re fighting the Clippers trying to build a new arena, which would compete to hold concerts.

The Warriors plan to hold concerts at their new arena and not have to share those revenues with the league.

Plus Dolan inherited billions and owns a big cable company serving half of NYC.

I would also guess they can charge more for tickets than smaller markets.

When I read the Wiki on Sarver, he was estimated to be worth about $300 million. A lot but he’s competing against multi billionaires.

I don’t think NBA TV money is anything like the NFL, where it’s enough to cover payroll and operations and have money left over and attendance is just gravy.

Also, some teams have huge local TV deals. Lakers supposedly make $100 million just from local TV.

We had a sold-out crowd the very first game of the season. Probably even the 2nd game too since we blew out the Mavs in the first game of the season. Then we got destroyed, and destroyed again and again, so the crowd stopped showing up. Nobody wants to watch a bunch of players who wear a uniform but don't act like a team. I'll say we sell out the first game again, and then a lot of the bandwagon fans will decide if they want to stay for the duration of the season.

denial wrote:I just wanted to hear some of the smart folks here discuss the topic.

I'm gonna post here anyway.

Will we still be second to last next year?

I'd think Rubio and a resigned Oubre would draw in slightly more fans. I'll predict 25th in attendance.
Unfortunately Phoenix will remain a place to a lot of casual and non-Suns fans that attend games and often outnumber the hometown attendees, as is the case with all Arizona sporting outlets.

How does this drive decisions from Sarver?

I don't think that will factor into any basketball related decisions. I doubt it will force into consideration of selling the team, if that's what you were hoping. An argument can be made that $arver's biggest penny-pinching moments came during the Nash era, when the stadium was consistently selling out and a global sensation (and the MVP wasn't even making half of what a max contract was back then!)

Isnt there some sort of profit share in the NBA? Does that means teams can suck and still make the same money?

There is indeed a revenue sharing model. It's partially how small-market teams stay afloat amidst dwindling attendance, whether they are good or bad. After all, people do buy Suns tickets when the Lebrons come to town.

Qwigglez wrote:We had a sold-out crowd the very first game of the season. Probably even the 2nd game too since we blew out the Mavs in the first game of the season.

I was at both games. Most fun at a suns game in probably 4 years.

wco81 wrote:Situation with the Knicks is that they own MSG and probably make a lot of money from non NBA events there.

Yeah but even without all that they’re doing great in nba ticket sales which was what I was focused on. They were 9th in sales despite being one of the worst teams in the league. So they can suck and still generate some of the most ticket sales in the league. And if the ticket prices are consistent with other ny stuff, then they’re making a killing on nba tickets in addition to the other stuff you mention

Moochthemonkey wrote:

denial wrote:I just wanted to hear some of the smart folks here discuss the topic.

I'm gonna post here anyway.

Nonsense! Your reply is rather informative.

How does this drive decisions from Sarver?

I don't think that will factor into any basketball related decisions. I doubt it will force into consideration of selling the team, if that's what you were hoping.

Nah not at all. I’m one of the few ppl that don’t blame sarver for our problems. I mean not like others. Obviously you have to place blame at the top. But I don’t think he is cheap. Made some bad FO/GM hiring decisions (babby/mcd) but honestly I was fine with mcd until this week (hindsight). So far I like jones. I was just curious if the attendance numbers being so low causes changes to the sense of urgency vs patience with team building

Don't most of the good Suns tickets go to companies? They just give them out to employees and crap like that. So while it says the average attendance was at 15,293, it was probably more like 10k, since people didn't even want to go for free.

https://geoshen.com/posts/nba-arenas-ranked-by-seating-capacity

This is all the NBA arenas' max seating capacities. Some of the attendance numbers are 2000 above max seating. I'm guessing there's also some shiftiness on how many people actually attend games to make it look inflated. I'm sure there were games during the season under 10k in attendance in reality that were reported as being more than that.

grumpysaddle wrote:Don't most of the good Suns tickets go to companies? They just give them out to employees and crap like that. So while it says the average attendance was at 15,293, it was probably more like 10k, since people didn't even want to go for free.

sellout and attendance are two different things. Attendance counts are taken upon patrons entering the stadium. Whether attendance is falsely reported as ticket sales, idk.

grumpysaddle wrote:https://geoshen.com/posts/nba-arenas-ranked-by-seating-capacity

This is all the NBA arenas' max seating capacities. Some of the attendance numbers are 2000 above max seating. I'm guessing there's also some shiftiness on how many people actually attend games to make it look inflated. I'm sure there were games during the season under 10k in attendance in reality that were reported as being more than that.

Yeah I think you're right. When I coached rec ball Boys and Girls club would regularly give out free Suns tickets.
And even moreso, mercury tickets. It is incredibly easy to get free mercury tickets. They literally have a hard time giving them away. A few times I took Mercury tickets because no one else would take them, and I figured maybe I would get a chance to go, but didn't. (so that would count as a ticket "sale" but should not affect "attendance", presumably)
Now that I think about it they would give us tickets to take our whole team to see them, and when we went once (don't remember if it was Suns or Mercury) we noticed a bunch of other teams there too, making it seem like there were many more paying fans than what there actually are. Not sure if the Suns org "pays" for the tickets and then "donates" them to the B&G club (allowing them to write it off for taxes, so they dont actually lose any money) or some scam along those lines.