HoldenV8
Years ago

NBL Attendance - Round 19

Round 19 of the season and only four games played this week but overall the crowds were good and there were a couple of upsets to boot.

Kings vs Blaze - 5,863 @ SEC (54%)
Taipans vs Wildcats - 4,609 @ CCC (87%)
Hawks vs Breakers - 3,566 @ WEC (59%)
36ers vs Crocodiles - 5,072 @ AA (63%)

A very good crowd at the Sydney Ent Cent on Friday night. The Kings aren't exactly playing like a championship caliber team and have been anchored to 7th spot on the ladder since Rd.11 so to draw 5,863 against the Blaze is a very good effort

I'm giving up on the Taipans crowds. Not because they are all over the place and hard to pick but because they've done it once more, drawn over 4K for the 10th time this season in 10 home games. Once more take a bow Taipans fans but how about next time only 3,999 turning up, just for a change :p

Some might look at the crowd in Wollongong on Saturday night and think they should have drawn more against the competition leaders and defending champs but considering the game was on the back of the Hawks being thumped by 41 point the previous week I thought that it was a very good crowd for the `Gong, especially this season. Old Man Oscar gave them something to cheer about too and led the Hawks to probably the upset of the season so far.

I'll be the first to admit that I was surprised when I looked around the Adelaide Arena from my seat near the TV platform on Sunday arvo. The 36ers had lost their previous 6 games (including 2 in Townsville) and I was honestly expecting at best 4,000 so to see 5,072 show their support for a struggling team was great and it shows that despite what some people in here tend to think, the people of Adelaide will still go to see the 36ers play basketball even if the team isn't winning often. The standing ovation the team got at the end of the game was great also, bloody loud too lol.

Ok, there you have it. Not one of the crowds this week is one I would say was a failure all things considered. Sure there was one crowd that didn't reach 4K but that was understandable.

NBL crowds definitely aren't what they were back in the 1990's but they are what they are and there is room for growth. They aren't going backwards and that's the main thing.

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Anonymous
Years ago

Crowds are up which is great to see, but I would love to see the mainstream media acknowledge this and give a report on the rise of the NBL again. Or at least it's improvement...

And when you compare our league to say the A-league, which has a huge profile, you only need to take away the Melbourne Vicotorys crowds, and the occasional 10,000-12,000 crowd at other venues maybe once a week, and all of a sudden, the NBL is nearly on the same level crowd wise to the much more prolific a-league. And don't forget they play in massive stadiums, whereas in the NBL, our arenas are usually filled.

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natwhereyouat
Years ago

Considering the last time the Breakers played in Wollongong, they hammered the Hawks. Also throw in that weather was wild in Wollongong all weekend, it was huge to get over 3,500 to the game!

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Anonymous
Years ago

Sadly the TV ratings have dropped off to alarming levels over the last month or so:

Round 15
Fri - Wollongong Hawks v Cairns Taipans, N/A
Sat – Townsville Crocs v Sydney Kings, N/A
Sun – Melbourne Tigers v Gold Coast Blaze, N/A

Round 16
Fri – Sydney Kings v Perth Wildcats, 17,000
Sat – Gold Coast Blaze v Melbourne Tigers, 11,000
Sun – Adelaide 36ers v Cairns Taipans, N/A

Round 17
Fri – Wollongong Hawks v Melbourne Tigers, 13,000
Sat – Perth Wildcats v Townsville Crocs, 14,000
Sun – Gold Coast Blaze v Cairns Taipans, N/A

Round 18
Fri – Melbourne Tigers v Adelaide 36ers, N/A
Sat – Gold Coast Blaze v Wollongong Hawks, 9,000
Sun – Townsville Crocs v Adelaide 36ers, N/A

Round 19
Fri – Sydney Kings v Gold Coast Blaze, 12,000
Sat – Wollongong Hawks v NZ Breakers, N/A
Sun – Adelaide 36ers v Townsville Crocs, N/A

http://www.michaeldifabrizio.com/nbl-tv-ratings/

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HoldenV8
Years ago

Doesn't help that One (Ten) is treating NBL fans like chumps. Do you think they'd dump the AFL or NRL to a 10:30pm replay from Friday through the whole weekend if they had their telecasts?

I know its not the greatest example comparing the NBL's fan base to the AFL or NRL's but its the truth. Ten treat their netball fans better.

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Anonymous
Years ago

That's because the netball pay Ten/One for their coverage where as Ten/One pays the NBL $600K a season for the right to show NBL games.

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Anonymous
Years ago

First problem: Who wants to stay up till 12.30am watching two teams that you don't support anyway? I'm a wildcats fan and will easily stay awake late at night to watch the cats, but will find it pretty hard to stay tuned into a Gold Coast v Wollongong match.

2nd problem: the stupid skits, poor commentary (carfino), the overdosing on cheerleaders and the unappealing matches (how many hawks games do we need to see) are big put offs, and I'm sure are factors to the downturn in viewers lately.

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HoldenV8
Years ago

Yeah well try telling that to Ten anon and I wish they'd listen. It wouldn't be that hard for their local stations to telecast every game (with local commentators which hopefully would stick Carfino in the Kingdome and not everywhere else looking like a court jester before games). A 36ers away game could be shown in Adelaide, same with the `Cats, Kings, Hawks etc in their towns, even if it is on delay at 10:30pm or later.

Ratings might improve then, local ones at least. I'd love to see a breakdown of which NBL towns are watching and which aren't when its not their team playing...

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MikefromtheK
Years ago

What were the crowds like during the 90's?

NBL crowds seem to have increased over the past few years and the coverage on free to air is defs crucial. I don't care who commentates, how much they show the cheerleaders, or what time they put it on as long as they show it. If you're privledged enough to have Foxtel than i can understand why you might prefer it on Foxtel but a lot of people have never had Foxtel and never will so that diminishes a significant share of your audience if you're only showing the game on Fox. People always talk about the 90s and i remember the 90s where they used to show basketball on free to air tv on the ABC. At the end of the day the ONE deal isn't even that bad. 3 delayed games a week is better than no games and next year or the year after it will probs be 4 or 5 delayed games a week...

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Anonymous
Years ago

The ratings have dropped, but not as much as those listings would suggest. Since the beginning of the Australian Open tennis a greater percentage of the NBL audience has been via time-shifted viewing (PVR recordings).

This perhaps gives an indication as to why the NBL's ratings have been as high as last year when the games were live. Firstly, the NBL has far less quality competition at 10.30, particularly for a sports fan. This changed when the Australian Open tennis was on.

Secondly basketball fans are more likely to win the fight for the remote control at that time compared to 7.30 when there are far more popular shows on.

And thirdly, time-shifted viewing is becoming more popular and more accepted, meaning the number of viewers lost due to a change in timeslot is less than in the past.

Sports broadcasts in general lost signifcant ratings when the Australian Open was on, the concern for the NBL is they havent recovered all their viewers since it finished.

It's not quite the doom and gloom those numbers would indicate, however.

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alexkrad
Years ago

I seen an add for NBL "Friday, Saturday and Sunday Night" during prime time channel 10 last night.. Also seen an add for it during the day last week sometime. More than I had seen any other time during the season..

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HoldenV8
Years ago

Here in Adelaide we get TV adds telling people they can see 36ers games at the Adelaide Arena (self promotion is a good thing) but not once have I seen an add for the NBL itself, not on OneHD, not on Ten and definitely not on any other channel.

Anon, you make a good point about the tennis. For the month of January we had the Hopman Cup, Brisbane & Sydney Internationals, The Kooyong Classic (was that on the box?) and then the Australian Open. I dare say it wasn't just basketball's ratings that took a bit of a hit during January.

MikefromtheK is right, at least someone is prepared to televise NBL games on free-to-air. Even if Ten (One) is showing games on delay and not live its better than restricting the audience to those who have Foxtel or worse still no games being shown at all. But they are treating the fans like chumps and could be doing a much better job of things.

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Hoops

NBL Attendance - Round 19

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