With all of their wheeling and dealing this past summer, the Philadelphia Sixers were supposed to be one of the feel-good stories this season. A team led by a universally-liked veteran, and complimented with exciting youngsters, this squad was primed to be one of the more popular teams in the L. Well, let’s just say that things aren’t exactly going according to plan.
Not only are people not jumping on the Sixers’ bandgwagon across the hoops landscape, but the team can’t even get the locals to show up for their games. A combination of crummy basketball and an even crummier economy has Philly’s home attendance ranked among the worst in the Association.
From the Philadelphia Daily News:
Through four games, the Sixers are averaging 12,601 in attendance, ranking them 28th out of 30 NBA teams.
“Definitely, there was so much attention and so much money spent on the Phillies,” Jeremi Conaway, of Wanamaker’s Tickets in Center City, said yesterday. “People weren’t thinking about basketball at all. There’s only so much money to go around, and a majority of that definitely was going to the Phillies. At the same time, the Sixers’ attendance would be much better if they were playing better basketball.”
Evidently, until the product on the basketball court improves, the team is going to have to come up with some creative ways to put some butts in the seats. Perhaps, their marketing execs could reach out to the city’s unemployed?
