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With a new ownership group in place and a revived sense of energy about the Kings in the Sacramento community, attendance at the home games can only go up from here.
The Kings ranked last in attendance (13,749 per game) in the 2012-13 season. This wasn't because of a lack of interest on the fans' part, of course. It was because of the uncertainty surrounding the Maloofs and the potential relocation bid to Seattle. We should all be reminded that Kings fans made it happen when it counted (Here We Buy Nights). It's also worth mentioning that with so much on the line, the Kings still had 19 home games last season with more than 14,000 in attendance - the most since the 2007-08 season - and 11 games with more than 15,000.
Now a new season is upon us and I don't see how there won't be a jump in attendance. How much of a jump? Not sure. But I expect the average to increase by a minimum of 1,500 to 2,000.
The Kings still currently lead the league in new season tickets sold. So that is going to provide a huge bump in the overall numbers.
But outside of the actual numbers themselves, one has to assume that the level of crowd intensity, given the nature of what has transpired over the last eight months, will see a big boost. If the Kings can put together a few winning streaks and their defensive tenacity increases as promised, then the crowds won't just be larger, they will be a lot more fun as well. And that will have a snowball effect, bringing even more fans into the building as word of mouth spreads.
The equation I am going off is this: new season ticket sales + new ownership + new direction + team basketball + community pride = an increase in attendance.
It sure would be nice if Sacramento could get back to the days of consecutive sellout streaks because that in and of itself helps lead to wins. It'll get there. It may or may not happen next season, but Sacramento will get back to those type of numbers on a night-to-night basis.
Attendance, like many of the other things going into this Kings season, is an unknown - a good unknown accompanied with a sense of optimism and energy.