While the NBA claims that its arenas were at 90.4 percent capacity last season, that figure doesn't account for comp tickets and people who don't show up. According to the league data, an average of 14,072 fans actually attended NBA games last season, putting average arena capacity at 73 percent.
Paid tickets are good, but teams prefer to fill seats with people who are paying for parking and concessions. The teams that struggled the most to get people through the turnstiles last season were Memphis (7,570 per game), Minnesota (8,969), Charlotte (9,404), Indiana (10,057), Sacramento (10,188), Milwaukee (10,884) and Washington (11,030).
If a certain number of tickets can't be sold, Grinstead said teams prefer to give them away -- or "comp" them -- in the hopes that those fans will show up and spend money on food, souvenirs and parking. But too many comp tickets can also mean lost revenues. Three teams shared the dubious honor of handing out an average of more than 5,000 free tickets per game last season: the Hawks (5,616), Nets (5,213) and Timberwolves (5,205).
http://www.cbssports.com/nba/story/11934840
I knew the attendance numbers tracked during the year didn't reflect the actual number in the building, but I always assumed it was tickets sold. This claims those numbers include comped tickets, which is higher than 5000 per game for some teams?
It looks like the Salt Lake Tribune saw a similar memo, or perhaps the same one, but they just detailed the level of season ticket sales compared to prior years for a handful of teams.
Through the first week of July, the Jazz had 10,713 renewals, compared to 13,120 in 2008, with 533 new season-ticket packages sold compared to 744. That left the Jazz with a season-ticket base of 11,246, down nearly 19 percent from last year's 13,864.
The Jazz also ranked 10th in the league with a renewal rate of 76.4 percent. That's better than the NBA average of 71.1 percent, but down from the 91.6 percent rate the Jazz enjoyed through the same period in 2008.
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The Jazz still boast one of the NBA's largest season-ticket bases, though Orlando is leading the league at 11,638. Cleveland leads with a 94.5 percent renewal rate, ahead of Boston and Portland.
http://www.sltrib.com/jazz/ci_12863323
That was surprising...I figured one of the larger market teams would be first on the number-of-season-ticketholders list, and that the number would be quite a bit higher. This suggests most arenas have 8000-10000 seats to fill on an individual game basis.