The Atlanta Hawks have been reportedly sold to LA businessman, Alex Meruerlo.
Initial reports have also indicated that the sale wouldn't mean a move for the Hawks. Atlanta fans shouldn't feel so secure.
In any league all that management could really do to ensure that attendance is being maintained at a high level is to have a winning product on the floor and is exciting to watch.
The Hawks do have a relatively exciting nice core in place with Smith, Johnson, Horford and Teague. These players do display an exciting brand of basketball and have warranted enough wins over the years to warrant solid attendance numbers.
Winning and doing so in an exciting way, didn't really produce high attendance totals for these Hawks though in the last 3 seasons as we see below (season ending year):
Attendance Ranking
2011: 22nd
2010: 18th
2009: 20th
Winning Percentage Ranking
2011: 13th
2010: 7th
2009: 12th
Based on the above Atlanta's average attendance over the last 3 years placed them at 20th, meanwhile over that span they were on average around the 11th best team in the league, a 9 slot difference.
Smaller market teams like Cleveland over that span ranked 3rd, 2nd and 5th over that span. Yes they had LeBron, but fans kept showing up to see a winning product.
How about a different team with no real marquee talent that had similar winning outputs to the Hawks?
Well, the Portland Trail Blazers over the last 3 years ranked 2nd, 3rd and 3rd in attendance. During that same span their average NBA ranking in winning percentage was 9th, only 2 slots better than Atlanta and an attendance average ranking (3) 17 slots better.
What helps these above teams? For Cleveland the solution was likely both winning AND attaining the most exciting and marketable player in the NBA in LeBron James.
For other teams like the Knicks, usually the city's market share is a key indicator.
Where teams like Hawks get hurt the most is competing with the other sports teams in their area. Atlanta is home to the Trashers (pending move), Falcons, and Braves. For a major U.S. city, but not a New York, LA or Chicago, that's a decent amount of local competition. On top of which Atlanta can't really stand out too much in their own city even winning wise with the Braves and Falcons usually competitive in their own sports for playoffs and beyond.
The Hawks should certainly look to move. You can't have a 9 slot difference year in and year out between your winning percentage and attendance ranking.
The new location, despite the businessman being from a large market (LA), doesn't need to be a New York or LA.
Looking at some other NBA teams that are successful in attendance like the Utah Jazz and Portland Trailblazers, we could note that they are from semi big cities, but with little professional competition.
If Atlanta's new ownership decides to move it may make sense to choose a location were they won't need to pry fans from the cities' other major sports teams.
The problem is that many of those locations are likely taken. There may be some smaller cities that have absolutely no other professional sports teams (Albuquerque, El Paso, or Louisville) and a venture could duplicate similar results as the Blazers or Jazz.
Another idea is to form a similar strategy as the Golden State Warriors (Oakland and San Francisco) and place a team near two big cities (Columbus and Cincy, or Anaheim and San Diego).
Any which way ownership decides to go, it is clear that a move is necessary. If a team can not fill seats by winning and being exciting while doing so, what else can they do?
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