If they get the crowds that you mentioned in your prediction, that will be a massive success.

Semi finals traditionally get much lower crowds than the regular season matches and with gamed being played on Thurday, Monday and I think Tuesday as well? I'd be amazed if numbers were anywhere near that.

Are the Bullets playing at Boondall? If so, they might peak at 5000. I have no confidence in Brisbane coming out to support the Bullets. Kings-United series deserves huge crowds but im a bit pessimistic. Maybe in the mid to high 6000's there.

Perth should still be strong with suppprt. Probably 11-12000 for their games.

Semi finals crowds are always a little lower than they really should be as fans are saving up for the real deal.

It would almost be worthwhile adding an extra home game to a season ticket package to include the SF series. At the moment a club ticket is 14 home games. Make it the cost of 14.5 home games so the 0.5 cost is shared between the club and the fan. It's the classic "each way bet"

If your team makes the SF then you get to go to 15 games for the price of 14.5, if there's 2 x SF, you see 16 games for 14.5. If they don't make SFs (50% chance) then the extra $ could go towards getting a better coach or import for next season. (You have paid 14.5 for the price of 14 games, or an extra 3.6% per game.

so...
50% chance the fan doesn't get a SF ($0 return)
25% chance the fan gets a bonus half a game (say 50% chance of at least one SF)
25% chance the fan gets a bonus 1.5 games

Return = 0.5 x 0 + 0.25 x 0.50 + 0.25 x 1.50 = 0.5 (50%)
So, it is basically the chance of buying 0.5 of a game at 0.5 of cost.

The club has got an extra 0.5 of a home game for the entire season. That extra money could go into the short term stock market and a clever team owner could turn that into a tidy return...I think that may have been done before......

Something for clubs to consider

I like that idea Jack, but for the Wildcats you may as well lock in the SF game!

Perth will only get 11k or 12k to the games. Many members skip the semi for the Grand Final series. Cost too much to attend the semis and the grand.

In some ways I preferred the old AHH series.

Too often now, especially in the semis, we see teams swept in 2 games.

If Brisbane lose game 1, which they should.
There motivation for game two will be poor, knowing that even a win merely prolongs the inevitable. Fans will react in kind. I would expect attendance to be very poor for game.
Then if the Cats do win in 2, we miss the opportunity to see them win the series.

Play the first game in Brisbane, they and their fans will still be full of hope.
Win or lose, game 2 in Perth becomes extremely important and fans will flock.
Some of the most exciting series from the old days we lost game 1 on the road.

Jack - the cost:benefit is even better than 1:1. It's 1:1.5

Cost = 0.5 game

Expected benefit = 0.75 game = 50%*0 + 25%*1 + 25%*2

So cost is 0.5 of game (price) and expected benefit is 0.75 of a game.

I like the idea that clubs who don't make finals get to pay for better players or coaches with the extra. For a club with say 3,000 members @ $500 average membership price, The additional would be $54,000.

There will be a big crowd at Melbourne Arena on Thursday.

I bought tix at 6pm yesterday (only 3 hours after they went on sale to the general public) and loads of seats had been sold. Tickets are more expensive than reg sesson but not by too much.

I bought in the Bullets member pre-sale yesterday mid afternoon and around 900 tickets had been sold already which is solid. Due to the bad timeslot I'd be quite happy with 7k. Sydney has already opened the upper deck for their game so 10,000 is looking likely there.