Thanks for the regular reports!

Cairns showing up Townsville again. Any Crocs fans up there care to guess at the reasons Townsville aren't drawing more fans?

Townsville remains a complete mystery. Maybe once they get Schenscher and Hinder back and in the swing of things and maybe if the Crocs start winning more instead of their current habit of win one, lose one then maybe crowds will rise.

Of course, they're currently 3-1 at home so maybe fans will start going figuring they'll see a home win? Something's gotta happen to put bums on seats up there. I'd hate to see their crowds if their home record was like the 36ers or Hawks this season.

Re: NZ Crowds
We get decent live coverage of all home games on Sky Sport, NSEC is a pretty decent hike for me and quite a few other fans but I do usually go to a few games and have been pretty slack so far. I won't go to games at Vector, they can get f*#ked NZ$9ea for a beer in Vector where as NSEC is reasonable for food and drinks and parking but is just a longer drive.

NZ increased crowds by around 25% last year and are on track to do so again. They are doing very well.

I am not sure Adelaide would get a lot more than 4000 for a 7.30pm Sunday night game either - Sydney's Friday and Saturday night crowds have been 5600 and 6000.

Be interesting to see of the Crocs have their usual second half of the season bump, because the crowds have looked pretty sparse so far.

Perth dont seem at all interested in an accurate figure. Perhaps they could report it in decibels?

Townsville crowds have been on the slide for a few years, haven't had a sell out in forever. Cairns crowds from memory were struggling before their financial troubles and then did a really good job of engaging the public when it looked like they would fold. Maybe the crocs need to look at what Cairns have done in the last couple of years to increase supporter loyalty. Both teams have had similar success in the past couples of years, it's a bit of a mystery.

That's a good point. I think expectations are much higher in Townsville. Top four and SFs dont excite people there anymore like they do in Cairns.

It would be ironic, after all these years of teams looking at how Townsville does it, if they had to go and check out their arch-rivals model.

For two seasons now I've been saying that Townsville and Wollongong are really hurting the league in terms of attendance with their longer term trends. The drop in Sydney's crowd is now emphasising that - the league is on track this season to drop average crowds slightly.

Townsville historically had very high ticket prices - is that still the case?

I'm expecting this weeks game in Cairns to be a sell out (return of the Tiger Snakes), and by all reports tickets were selling real quick as of yesterday

HO, I think crowds are up on the same time last year, albeit slightly, so we will have to see whether it is a drop, hold or gain this year. If they can improve this year with the scheduling (ie Sunday nights) that would be a positive sign for the league.

As you know, Sydney's 'drop' is due to Sunday and Thursday home games. The next Friday or Saturday game will tell more of a story there.

If Townsville rise as they often do as the season goes and finish with the approx 4000 average they have the past three years there wont really be an issue - the trend will remain flat. If they hold at 3500-odd that would be a different story.

Wollongong is being hurt by 7.30pm Sunday, but I cant remember them ever averaging bigger crowds than 3500. I think their crowds this year are still better than when they first moved to WEC in the late 90s, but that is just going from what I see on TV.

Gold Coast need to get winning consistently to see if there actually is some interest on the Coast or not. They are the real worry.

Re: Challenge Stadium
They have barcode scanners this year so I am very confused why we get approx. numbers each game.

I will stand by my comments from other weeks saying I think it would have been more than 4000. You could only buy standing room tickets on the day of the game, the empty seats, likely to be members with something else on, couldnt have been more than a couple hundred. So say the people with standing tickets was equal to the number of empty seats and its around 4500?

Sixers game is 4:00PM this Sunday.

Maybe Paul,

I do not tend to accept what the NBL tells us, but like to take what austadiums has.

While there are holes in their data (last year they got nothing from tigers for example) i just like their comparative history.

Right now, averages are below last year on Austadiums. But, to be fair, last years averages would have been worse on austadiums if Tigers had been included.

Now if Austadiums average is down, and the Kings are performing worse than last year, which they are, I reckon the year long trend will be poor.

I remain unconvinced that either Wollongong or Sydney will see much salvation in crowds this year, given those teams performances to date. Wollongong at 3300 per game are only 2-300 below last year, but they suck this year.

Gold Coast is awful, Melbourne have spiked i reckon depending on what they get to replace Mills and the overall numbers are a little inflated by the Breakers playing some games so far at Vector.

In short, i reckon the conditions this year have been as good as they are going to get for crowds, with Mills, Vector etc thrown in.

If was sitting watching the last election in the tally room, at this point I would be pointing to a Labour defeat, not a hung parliament!

I bought attendance.com.au earlier this year with a view to building a competitor to austadiums. Enable people to check average attendance against particular opponents, rank away teams on drawing power, check average crowds based on day of week or time of day, etc.

If someone wanted to get and provide the data consistently, I'd partner up and design/build the site.

Glad you like it anon but it's not what was said. What was said was "OVERALL the numbers are... playing SOME games at...".

Vector must be treated as an exception to their average at this point. They have played two of six games so far at Vector. They have 8 more home games of which 1 is at Vector.

In that context, considering both Vector crowds exceeded the capacity of North Harbour, the remaining game at Vector would have to pull a stunning crowd for the Breaker's crowds to do anything but fall as an average for the remainder of the season.

You seem in a hurry to find reasons to downplay attendance. There is good and bad, but overall it is too early to draw much of a conclusion for the season. At this stage there hasnt really been much of a change.

Again Paul maybe. I just want to make the early call, as I did with tv ratings last year.

Fair enough. I had a look along the fixture the other day and thought there could be a slight drop by season's end. But a lot will depend on how Sydney and Adelaide go I think. If they start actually winning we could see some pretty good crowds in those cities. Big if for Adelaide though.

Haha.

Ad spam brings this old thread to the 1st page. Attendances look really sad compared to last few years

Breakers vs Tigers - 3,467 @ NSEC (84%)
Taipans vs Blaze - 4,542 @ CCC (86%)
Crocs vs Hawks - 3,600 @ TEC (68%)
Wildcats vs 36ers - 4,000 @ CS (89%)
Kings vs Taipans - 4,068 @ SEC (39%)

Some of the improvement precedes LK though. Removing Townsville home games and adding the Wildcats (after moving to the entertainment center) helps the bottom line.

Nonetheless, those are very depressing stats.