Donovan McNabb and the State of Football
This NBA season was the highest-attended regular season in NBA history, the league announced Monday. 22,234,502 ticketed fans attended games, breaking the league’s previous record of 22,124,559 total fans set in 2017-18.
Arenas were packed on average at 97% capacity this season, and there were 791 sellouts across the league, both setting new all-time league records. The league’s previous sellout record was 760 games reached in the 2018-19 season.
This season marks just the second time league attendance totals eclipsed 22 million in a regular season. NBA games this season averaged 18,077 fans per game, a record for the league. The league’s other top seasons for total attendance were set in the four seasons leading up to the pandemic-stricken 2019-20 season.
In January, the San Antonio Spurs set an NBA single-game attendance record with 68,323 fans at the Alamodome for its game against the Golden State Warriors.
While NBA crowds reached an all-time high, seeing if end-of-season broadcast viewership metrics can match that pace after February’s NBA All-Star Game had a record-low TV audience will be interesting. Viewership for the 2021-22 NBA season on ESPN, ABC, and TNT increased 19% over the 2020-21 season. Broadcast numbers for this season haven’t yet been announced but will come as the NBA is negotiating its next set of media rights deals to start in 2025.
