Attendance Figures

I was at Monday afternoon's game. They reported 21,000 paid and 17,000 actual attendance. They more likely had 17,000 empty seats. Some of the 300 level sections were totally empty. Who invents the attendance numbers?

Mike McGinley Hoffman Estates, IL

For the longest time they have only announced tickets sold so the fact that they are admitting the possibility of a difference between sold and attending souls is step forward.

I've never heard them announce an actual 'in the building' number. The number in the box score each game (and the one they used to proudly reveal during the game while the sellout streak was still alive) is the tickets sold number, 17,167 for Monday. The closest I've heard to an in-house figure is from a friend who works for Bismarck (the building caterer/concessionaire) who says they get 'expected' attendance numbers in their pre-game meetings. No idea how accurate these are, as they'd have to predict the no-shows as well as late walk-up sales. For what it's worth, I was told '8,000 to 10,000' was the expected in-house crowd for Monday. I'd say it probably fell somewhere within that range.

I really can't get how in the US there are people who buy a ticket and then decide not to go to the match! And they're not that cheap...

A large number of those tickets sold are written off as business expenses. This is especially true of the seats on the 1st level that go for 85.00 a pop.

Ah, an innocent. We must protect him from the horror of watching basketball in the United Center.

Man, there are some things money can't buy, and a ticket to a good Bulls game these days ranks right up there behind friends and love.

ok, I got that problem about tickets sold to companies, but if you decide to BUY it, why the hell shouldn't you go? If hadn't wanted to go you could have not bougth it!

It's simple....It's not that cool anymore to say you're attending a Bulls game. You offer tickets and your clients thank you politely for the generous offer,but somehow always have a previous engagement or some other excuse for not taking them. During the glory years the only thing that would have kept them away was open-heart surgery. It becomes a wink-wink kind of game after a while.