1. Chicago Bulls 2. Utah Jazz 3. Golden State Warriors 4. Oklahoma City Thunder/Seattle Supersonics 5. Boston Celtics 6. Los Angeles Lakers 7. San Antonio Spurs 8. Sacramento Kings 9. New York Knicks
What if "best" is which fan base consistently provides biggest HCA for their team, vs. ticket prices, sales, ratings, etc. Utah & OKC? Arena design might be too much a factor.
Fan bases? What team has a fan site like ClutchFans with 46,850 members, as of today. Are there any out there with more members? Anyone know? I'm a bit surprised that no one has pointed out that the Rockets quite possibly have the largest single group of fans following their team on a BBS. I'm talking about a local fansite, not the running jokes out there, like the ESPN boards. Again, what other team has the equivalent of ClutchFans with a larger number of members? As for the crowds at the ToyBox, as has been pointed out about a thousand times here, if you convince the fans in Houston that you are a winning team, a team with success in the playoffs, they will come and they will be loud as hell. What's bad about the Toyota Center, something I don't like myself at all, is the design. You have the more affordable seats way up where you need an oxygen mask to breath while you watch games, and then you have a lower bowl where the best seats are largely owned by corporations, wealthy business people and the like, whose seats often sit empty, glaringly empty, unless we are a seriously competitive team, a playoff team, a "hot ticket." It's like the place was designed to look empty when those high rollers and corporations don't fill their season ticket seats, a stupid flaw in the design, in my opinion. The upper bowl can be packed, and if you're watching on TV, all those thousands of folks gasping for oxygen can barely be seen. My opinion, of course.
I'd have to agree and even outside of having that, they have some of the best fans on the internet IMO.
Out of genuine curiosity, why is Sacramento not higher on people's list? They have sucked for YEARS and yet still have sold out crowds which they all attend and cheer for the game. I remember when they DID have the Jason Williams/Webber that place was LOUD!
I just find it hard to put NY up ahead of teams like Golden State and Sacramento when they (Knicks' fan base) will openly boo their own team frequently during losing games.
Going off that graph, I'm surprised Memphis is so low on the spectrum. They're a good team that's playoff bound, and they play blue collar basketball. And I'm pretty sure most people residing in Memphis are blue collar.
I live in Chicago, no way the Bulls are #1. They are way behind the Bears, Cubs and White Sox in popularity and right now are behind the Blackhawks. Utah, Sacramento, Seattle, Portland, OKC, LA, NY and GS all are far more rabid than Chicago Bulls fans. Lets put it this way, the Bulls are preparing for the playoffs and the return of Rose and all the discussion is the Bears off season and spring training with a sprinkling of Blackhawks.... the Bulls just are not "it" in Chicago and even when Jordan was in town the Bears and Cubs were more popular. Because the NBA is the "3rd" league, the most passionate fans tend to be in cities that lack NFL and MLB teams. Hell the Celtics are waaaaay behind the Red Sox and Pats in Boston.
Lol I don't think it's that much different from other team sites like lakersground or spurstalk. I know people here like to look down on other team sites like they're so stupid but have you seen some of the threads here? Just as dumb as some of those lakersgrounds threads. I'm sure fans of other teams read threads here and are like "WTF is wrong with these guys" like we do with others :grin:
This plus the Blazers. Even when Portland went through the Jail Blazer era fans backed them and even when they're rebuilding like the past couple years they've always had a loyal following.
Having lived in the Dallas media market for about 5 years in the early to mid-90's, it cracks me up to hear anyone talk about how awesome Mavs fans are. When I was there, they literally had ticket promotions through Taco Bueno where if you bought a certain number of tacos you got a free ticket. I used to go catch the Rockets at Reunion Arena nearly every time they played there because you could get down in the floor seats for next to nothing.
ive gotten floor seats and was yelling, and people were lookin at me like "??????" and i was like !??!!??!? did you see chuck hayes pwn blake griffin!!?!
This is wrong. While they aren't the most popular team in the city, they are up there with any team other than the Bears. The White Sox play to half empty stadiums every single game, so they're MUCH more popular than the Sox. Even the Cubs don't sell out every game anymore--you could get Cubs tickets for under a dollar on Stubhub last season. The Bulls lead the league in attendance (and did when Tyson Chandler and Eddy Curry were leading the team to 12 wins) and have a rabid following of fans--this is a great basketball town. Yeah, people talk Bears a lot, but is there a city that exists where the NFL isn't #1? The Bulls get a significant amount of coverage and you can barely turn around downtown without seeing people rocking Bulls paraphernalia. Where in Chicago do you live? I realize it might be different if you're in the suburbs.
