NBA attendance even with last year’s record mark
NEW YORK – Attendance for the 2018-19 NBA regular season finished even with last year’s record mark. The league also set the all-time record for total sellouts for the fifth consecutive year with 760 games sold-out, while achieving 95 percent or more of arena capacity for the second consecutive year and second time in league history.
Coming off four straight seasons of total attendance records, the overall league attendance of 21,964,447 was even with last year when factoring in arena capacity reductions from new arenas and building renovations. These arena enhancements resulted in more than 141,000 fewer available seats from last season.
Even with the arena capacity reductions, this year’s total attendance reached fourth all-time, trailing only last year’s total (22,124,559), the 2016-17 season total (21,997,412) and the 2015-16 season total (21,972,129).
The new league record of 760 sellouts exceeded the previous mark of 741 sellouts set last year.
Additional highlights for the 2018-19 regular season include:
Merchandise: For the third consecutive year, NBAStore.com established a new record for sales during the regular season, with overall sales up 10 percent over the 2017-18 season.
NBA League Pass: NBA League Pass set a record for global digital subscriptions, up 21 percent over last season’s record. This season, NBA League Pass introduced a variety of new offerings, including options to purchase a single game at reduced prices after each quarter and the launch of NBA 10-Minute Pass, which provides 10 minutes of real-time access to NBA League Pass for $0.99.
Social Media: The league established new records across social media this season with 918 million actions (+14 percent) and 11.5 billion total video views (+5 percent), breaking last year’s marks. Overall, the NBA now has more than 1.6 billion likes and followers combined across all league, team, and player social platforms worldwide.
The 2019 NBA Playoffs tip off on Saturday, April 13, with 16 teams competing for a trip to the NBA Finals presented by YouTube TV and the chance to win The Larry O’Brien Trophy.