Pacers fans slow to make return to home games

The Pacers through six home games have the “second-lowest attendance in the NBA by total attendees (12,396, Pistons are averaging 12,299) and are second-to-last by percentage of capacity (69.2%, Pistons are at 60.5%),” according to Matthew VanTryon of the INDIANAPOLIS STAR. The Pacers are “down 25.0% in attendance” from before the pandemic, the “largest drop-off in the NBA” through Monday. The team is “averaging 12,396 fans” through five games. By comparison, the first six home games of the ‘19-20 season “drew an average of 16,438 fans.” There were just 10,227 fans in attendance for the team’s game against the Spurs on Nov. 1, the “lowest attendance figure for a Pacers game” since '11. Pacers VP/External Affairs Danny Lopez  said, "You still have a segment of the population that is not necessarily comfortable going back to big events. You have some people that are not downtown that typically are downtown. It's an intersection of all these different things. We're fully expecting that we'll see the same pattern that we've seen every year, which is a gradual ramp up.” VanTryon notes there are "myriad potential explanations for the issue -- a pandemic that lingers, lack of crowds downtown, a lack of TV access causing fans to lose interest and a team with a lack of individual star power." All of the factors "come together to create a problem," albeit one that the Pacers "hope will resolve itself sooner than later" (INDIANAPOLIS STAR, 11/17).