Capital One Arena is the fourth largest NBA arena, but the Wizards are still in the bottom 10 for the raw number of filled seats.
Last month, I wrote about the Washington Wizards having one of the lowest rates of attendance in the NBA. The figure that stands out the most? Washington has the lowest utilization rate in the league. Currently, they have an 80.6 percent utilization rate.
They can’t blow it up! A tanking team would lose all fan support! pic.twitter.com/qIMc5fhtKC
— Hush ☪️ (@BluRayHush) January 7, 2023
From this percentage rate alone, it makes Washington look really bad. Some people have pointed out that perhaps the Wizards’ attendance rate is skewed to be lower, primarily because they have one of the largest arenas in the NBA.
Washington has the fourth largest NBA arena with 20,356 seats. The teams with the three largest arenas are the Chicago Bulls, Cleveland Cavaliers and Detroit Pistons, respectively.
If the Wizards played in the Crypto.com Arena, the 15th largest NBA arena with a capacity of 19.060, the Wizards’ average home attendance number of 16,594 would fill 87.1 percent of the seats. That’s better than 80.6 percent. But 87.1 percent would be fifth worst in the NBA.
So sure, the Wizards have one of the NBA’s largest arenas. But the Wizards still have some of the worst attendance in the league, whether it’s by arena utilization or raw number. The aforementioned figure of 16,594 is sixth-worst in the league.