NBA Sets Attendance Record by Drawing over 22.5M Fans During 2023-24 Regular Season

Andrew PetersApril 15, 2024

Nic Antaya/Getty Images

The NBA regular season was full of excitement this year, and the league’s attendance numbers reflected that.

Total attendance in the regular season reached 22,538,518, the league announced, setting a record for attendance for a second consecutive year. The NBA saw 873 sellouts, 71 percent of games selling out and an average attendance of 18,324—all of those numbers being league records.

The Association also announced that 98 percent of arenas were filled to capacity across the season, another record.

The previous records in those categories were 22,234,502 for total attendance, 791 sellouts, 63 percent of games selling out and 18,077 as the average attendance. Each of those former records were set during the 2022-23 season.

Twelve teams saw all of their games sell out: the Boston Celtics, Cleveland Cavaliers, Dallas Mavericks, Denver Nuggets, Golden State Warriors, Miami Heat, Milwaukee Bucks, Minnesota Timberwolves, Philadelphia 76ers, Phoenix Suns, Sacramento Kings and Utah Jazz.

The league also announced that tickets were purchased by fans from more than 150 countries and territories.

The NBA experimented with the new In-Season Tournament this year, which proved to be a success. The event, which was played across November and December, featured all 30 teams competing for an In-Season Tournament trophy with each player on the winning team receiving $500,000. The championship drew 4.58 million viewers, which was the most-watched non-Christmas regular-season game since 2018.

The NBA In-Season Tournament plus many exciting regular-season matchups made this year a fun one in the league.

Now, the playoffs are nearing with the Play-In Tournament taking place this week. If the regular-season attendance numbers were any indication of playoff attendance numbers, the league should see plenty of sellouts.