RealGM

Fact is the team has ranked in the top 5 in the league in attendance and/or filled their arena to capacity since the 2004-05 season. Thanks to Shaquille O’Neal, Dwyane Wade and LeBron’s 4-year train stop, the team has had a player among those with the best selling jersey and/or the team’s merchandise has ranked among the league’s best-selling since 2004. The team ranks 3rd in the league in terms of its social media sheer volume of fans and its following as a percent of its population, a number that shows its reach extends beyond Miami-Dade County. To boot, LeBron’s exit didn't lead to a mass exodus of fans. The Heat are still playing to a full capacity crowd and its merchandise remains among the top-selling in the league

Almost no Heat fans left Game 6 of the 2013 NBA Finals.

I'm so good at Photoshop! It took me hours to cut and paste little Miami Heat fans into these pictures.

Let's get something out of the way: Leaving this game was inexcusable. Heat fans that bailed on Game 6 for what amounts to a 15-minute head start on their sad drive home should be ashamed of themselves and rightfully have to live with that decision for the rest of their lives. Now that that's out of the way, we can talk facts. Almost no one left this game early, like literally almost nobody. No, wait -- I'll explain! I know the pictures above of a packed arena aren't enough for some of the slower members of our audience.

AmericanAirlines Arena sits/stands north of 20,000 people for an NBA Finals game. Deadspin correctly put up a post titled "Hundreds of Heat Fans Leave Game 6 Early; a Nation Laughs" following the game. I'm no mathematician, but let's say 500 left -- that would mean 2.5 percent of the people in that arena decided to beat traffic -- not exactly enough of a number to make a sweeping generalization about a fan base. Hell, call it 1,000 -- that's still 5 percent, which is about the same number of fans you might find taking a dump at any given moment during an NBA game. It's a slippery slope pointing out the shady actions of the lower 5 percent of your fan base. I'm looking at you, Boston Bruins fans.

DudetheObscure wrote:The same fans that left the building during the 2013 Finals?

And shame on you if you only showed up to see your hometown team when LeBron was in town. Or Kobe. Or Kevin Durrant. Or Chris Paul.


Of course not every one of you is a bandwagon fan.

TdotBasketball wrote:lol not even close

hype_2004 wrote:LMFAO, what a troll list, the Heat the muthfuggun bandwagon Heat fans,

WolvesGuy14 wrote:I'm going to go ahead and say the Wolves fans are the best. Not for crowd noise, sellouts, or anything like that. But for enduring what we have endured for so many years and still sticking around.