Perth and Adelaide were good crowds, should be a decent crowd in Cairns today for their home opener as well.

5600 in NZ according to the NBL. What 3000 figure did you see?

Crowds have been a little flat though overall.

The average crowd for this round will be over 7000. The highest average crowd for a season in NBL history was 6400, last year. Crowds are not flat, in fact we are getting end-of-season crowds at the start of the season, when numbers are usually lower.

True, however I think there are some games where a bigger crowd was expected:

NZs first 2 games have been underwhelming considering they are under new ownership, have assembled a decent team (they looked good against Phoenix) and game 2 was against the Kings. Kings away games should be sold out, so 5100 and 5600 is a bit flat IMO.

Melbourne v Adelaide GF rematch drew 7700. Thats a good number for the NBL, but being a Sunday afternoon in Melbourne and a GF rematch this early in the season should have gotten over 8000. That crowd today was 700 less than their season avg last year.

Kings season opener - despite the massive hype, i think it would be fair to expect an unusually massive crowd. 13-15000 would have been realistic. 10700 is great but also a bit dissapointing considering the hype.

6600 in Adleiad6e laat night but in all honesty could have been 7000 since Bogut and Randle were in the building! A good crowd yes, but not a great one.

Still, its very early so hopefully the usual trend of attendances going up as the season goes on continues.

During the broadcast on Friday night the commentators said the crowd in Adelaide was 7,500.

Sell out in Cairns

But how much of these numbers are total BS?

The claimed attendance for Perth is 11,599.
For that to be true they must have counted all the flying pigs.

The point has been made that this number is based on ticket sales. Ie Members plus casual sales.
I imagine most casual buys get used, but there were clearly a lot of member seats empty.

The Sunday afternoon games are NEVER as well attended on average. That's just a fact of life. The problem is that midday and arvo games now make up the majority.

"NZs first 2 games have been underwhelming considering they are under new ownership, have assembled a decent team."

They've had two crowds over 5000 which they didn't achieve until round nine last year. I don't know the new roster is a big drawcard either, less locals and some well-known names gone from a reliable playoff team.

Now they've got a rookie coach and an unbalanced line-up that could work and make playoffs or could finish bottom. Most would say a downgrade from recent years. So far two big losses at home suggests there's plenty of work to be done at the least.

"The point has been made that this number is based on ticket sales. Ie Members plus casual sales."

But if that's the method they've used every year (I don't know whether they do, but a lot of sports do) it makes the comparison with previous years valid.

yes, it's interesting to see the method for published crowd numbers not changing, although the technology at the door allows more accurate attendances to be counted. e.g., ticket/membership card scanning at entry.

If I was stadium management or team management I'd be looking at the bums-on-seats numbers. If my members aren't using their tickets, I'd need to know, so I could manage the risk of non renewal next season.

I don't see the problem. It's the second round of the season and crowd numbers are already near where they are nearing the playoffs.

It is possible to have a sell out and zero attendance. Spruiking attendance based on ticket sales is an acceptable industry tactic.

The Tour Down Under don't actually count the attendance. They count the number of people over a 100m distance and then multiply that by the event distance to get an attendee figure.

Counting tickets sold and selling that as "attendance" is standard practice and there's no reason the NBL should stop reporting those as their official figures.

From a member engagement and retention point of view though, you would hope the clubs do have access to figures which show the actual number of members who scan in.

I know the A League do, as the Victory have a promotion where you get certain rewards for attending games which is targeted specifically at members. This shows they're trying to get their members to actually turn up, rather than just buy the ticket.

Put it this way, if I were a paid member & quizzed as to why I did't attend, I'd massively have to restrain myself from sending the Team Manager an arse rocket.