I thought all my wounds attendance wise were all self inflicted, and they may still well be.
I changed out my staff at mid season to get what i thought was a better balance because the front office does affect the on court product and for what I thought would be a better economic benefit, I went from a 3 doc 3 trainer and 4 pr man to a 4 doc 4 trainer and 2 PR man and knocked about 15k overall in expense in the process.
The problem is I monkeyed around with the prices on the tickets a bit too much, mostly at the behest of one of the offsites arena recommendations which I had always pretty well taken as input but gone my own way.
My arena is 9k-900-222-10 at the start of the season I opened at 13 for the masses, about 45 for the middle class, I think 139 for the upper middle class and the sponsor boxes were going right out the door at 999. got stuck with a road heavy front third, and a crappy 3rd round cup boot so that did not help the mood of the fans following a round of 64 season. but attendance here is very strong, over 95% to near full for the night the cup dealt with me. Merch around 27k or so because I refuse to give strong consideration to anyone whos name can be pronounced by the Bubba's in Buzzerbeater land.
a move to 14 for the bums, 52 downstairs 149 to hang with the F listers and 1049 for the advertisers still produced ok money, though the change to a cheaper pr man did start to show its effect as the gates started to stymie a little bit.. started 7-2 but had played .500 ball and lost to the top 3 on the other side, so that did not help matters. Attendance though still pretty strong, but did start to wane a little bit going from 8k to right under 7k. Merch starts to tail a little bit 25,24, and still continuing down all the way to a just under 22k.
So what do I do? Go $1 up on the bleachers, go down to 49 downstairs, 133 court side and 1049 for the luxury sky suite with the stocked bar and gloved butler. first game against the #8 with 4 players, 6957. 2nd against the #1, 6508, and two home games this week, against my rival who is in the catbirds seat, 6128. I went ahead and took our Pr man out back and shot him and replaced him with national appeal since I hit the road for the playoffs. which lead to the season finale this evening, 6090 was your paid attendance,