Quote:
Originally Posted by MonctonianSentinel01
Please do! The more people in the stands the better! I'd like to fill the stands for both of our teams. It'll take a while for sure and we'll need to grow more as a city, but one small step at a time. I'd like to see the attendance get to 2000 average per game, maybe 3000. It should be doable. Just like when the cats started out, they weren't doing good. But now I think we've turned the page. Besides we need great forumers there to give good feedback.
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As someone who goes to a few games a year I don't think we'll ever see an attendance average of 3000 as long as the season runs along side hockey. The league is so difficult to gain any traction to get die hard fans and theres only so much money to go around for families entertainment budget.
If you have one of the best players in the league you likely lose him to the G-League or a better paying league in Europe. You are mostly getting players who are really good but are on the tail end of their career or a younger player whos hoping to move up the pro ranks but almost zero chance of making the NBA. The roster turnover from one year to the next must be close to 80%.
I think its possible that they get to a 2000 fan average if they remain in 1st place as the season goes on and can get to the finals and they work hard to promote the team.
I don't think all hope is lost yet, but if they continue to get crowds under 1000 I don't see the team sticking around much longer getting payouts from the city. Their social media over the weekend put out a video showing the sold out crowd in St Johns essentially begging for fans to come out. For whatever reason the NBL has been a huge success in St Johns, and it definitely helped them that they had no other major tenant when the team came. They now will be competing with an ECHL team, but they likely got enough fans hooked to maintain a healthy franchise.
The product itself is very entertaining, high tempo high scoring basketball with quality players who have played D1 NCAA/G-League. Considering we don't even have a major university team here it makes the talent stand out even more. The issue is don't get attached to too many players, because they will likely be gone the following year. 2 of the best players on the team this year were big parts of Halifax & London last year, so I'm not surprised they are 5-0.
FWIW I do find that the fans that go to the games do a far better job at making noise than a typical regular season wildcats game. The team is also very active in the community which I'm sure grows interest in basketball for the young kids that they visit at school. That is worth something.