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Basketball Spectator Attendance Statistics: NBA, WNBA and NCAA Crowds

Compare reported NCAA tournament crowds with NBA and WNBA regular-season attendance, team totals, sellouts and game records, keeping each figure’s scope clear.

November 12, 2026 7 min read sporthold.com Editorial Team

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Basketball spectator attendance statistics across major competitions

Basketball attendance can mean a season-long total, an average crowd per game, a sellout count or the audience at one event. Those measures answer different questions. A league total accumulates attendance across many games; an average helps compare typical game crowds within the stated competition; a sellout or capacity figure describes venue use; and a single-game record captures one occasion.

The figures here cover NCAA Division I championship tournaments, NBA regular seasons and WNBA regular seasons and events. They do not form a complete census of basketball spectators. In particular, the NCAA figures available here describe tournament crowds, not men’s regular-season attendance across Divisions I, II and III. Comparisons should therefore stay within the population and time period each source reports.

Basketball spectator attendance statistics: NCAA Division I tournament crowds

The NCAA reported that Division I men’s tournament attendance exceeded 700,000 for the third consecutive year through 2025. The statement establishes a repeated threshold, but does not give exact annual totals in the cited passage. It also said fans attended from all 50 U.S. states and 26 countries. That describes attendees’ geographic reach; it is not a separate headcount.

At the 2025 men’s Final Four in San Antonio, the Alamodome hosted a sold-out crowd of 68,252 for the semifinal games. This is a crowd figure for those games, not the entire tournament total.

2025 NCAA Division I championship measureReported attendanceScope
Men’s tournamentMore than 700,000Third consecutive year above this threshold
Men’s Final Four semifinals68,252Sold-out crowd at the Alamodome
Women’s tournament351,777Third-highest all-time mark cited by the NCAA
Women’s Final Four39,508Combined attendance at Amalie Arena

The women’s Division I tournament reached 351,777 attendees in 2025, which the NCAA described as its third-highest all-time mark. It was the fourth consecutive tournament to top 315,000. At the Women’s Final Four in Tampa, games at Amalie Arena drew a combined 39,508 fans, the highest mark since 2019. The Final Four figure covers part of the tournament, so it should not be added to the tournament total.

These figures show substantial crowds at Division I championship events. They do not establish typical regular-season attendance or provide a comparison among NCAA Divisions I, II and III.

Source: NCAA, “Record crowds, rising ratings and resurgent champions highlight 2025 NCAA basketball championships”.

Basketball spectator attendance statistics: NBA regular-season records

The NBA reported 22,538,518 attendees across its 2023–24 regular season, surpassing the previous record of 22,234,502 in 2022–23. Average attendance also reached a reported record: 18,324 per game in 2023–24, compared with 18,077 the season before. The total is cumulative across the season; the average is the more direct measure for comparing the reported game-level crowds.

NBA regular seasonTotal attendanceAverage per game
2023–2422,538,51818,324
2022–2322,234,50218,077
2017–1822,124,55917,987
2016–1721,997,41217,884
2015–1621,972,12917,864

The league’s historical lists place 2017–18, 2016–17 and 2015–16 among its five highest seasons for both total attendance and average attendance. The 2023–24 average was 337 per game higher than the 2017–18 figure. These are league-wide season averages, not a claim that every game drew a larger crowd.

Venue-use measures add a different perspective. NBA arenas were filled to 98% capacity in 2023–24, which the league called an all-time high. There were 873 regular-season sellouts, after the prior record of 791 in 2022–23. The share of games reported sold out rose from 63% to 71%. A sellout count is the number of games; the percentage is the share of games, so the figures should not be treated as interchangeable.

The NBA also reported an average attendance of 18,208 for November 2023, its highest November average at the time. That monthly figure covers only games in that month, unlike the full-season average.

Source: NBA, “NBA breaks all-time records for total attendance, average attendance, percentage of capacity and sellouts in 2023–24 regular season”.

Basketball spectator attendance statistics: WNBA totals and growth in 2024

WNBA regular-season attendance totaled 2,353,735 in 2024, the league’s highest total in 22 years, according to its season report. The league said the total was up 48% from the prior season. Average attendance was 9,807 per game, compared with 6,615 in 2023, also a reported 48% increase.

The league recorded 154 regular-season sellouts in 2024, up from 45 in 2023. All 12 teams had at least double-digit year-over-year attendance growth, with Indiana at 319%, Los Angeles at 69% and New York at 64%. These percentages describe changes in team attendance from the previous season; they are not each team’s share of league attendance.

Indiana’s home attendance reached 340,715 in 2024, a WNBA team single-season record. That surpassed New York’s previous home-attendance record of 250,565, set in 2001 across 16 games. Since the cited statement supplies the number of games only for the 2001 mark, those two totals do not support a direct per-game comparison.

A separate competition measure came from the Commissioner’s Cup: across 30 games in 2024, average attendance was 9,377, up 42% from the prior season. This is an average for Cup games, not the entire regular season.

Source: WNBA, “WNBA Delivers Record-Setting 2024 Season”.

WNBA team attendance and game records

A large crowd at one game can exceed a season average substantially. On September 19, 2024, Indiana’s game against the Washington Mystics at Capital One Arena drew 20,711 fans, setting a WNBA single-game attendance record at the time.

The Golden State Valkyries reported 397,408 fans across 22 regular-season home games in 2025, averaging 18,064 per game. The team said all 22 games at Chase Center sold out. The same league team-attendance list recorded 349,313 for the Indiana Fever and 341,575 for the New York Liberty in 2025. These are team season totals, not league totals.

New York Liberty game notes provide a dated example of home and away attendance. In the 2024 regular season, the Liberty recorded 254,590 home attendees over 20 games, an average of 12,730. Away attendance was 180,403 over 20 games, or 9,020 per game.

As of August 7, 2025, the notes listed 261,455 home attendees over 16 games, averaging 16,341, and 132,064 away attendees over 13 games, averaging 10,159. These are partial-season figures as of that date. The averages describe games played to that point; the totals are not final 2025 season totals and should not be compared directly with the full 2024 totals.

Sources: WNBA, “WNBA Delivers Record-Setting 2024 Season”; Golden State Valkyries, “Golden State Valkyries Set All-Time WNBA Attendance Record”; New York Liberty Game Notes, August 8, 2025.

WNBA spectator attendance through the 2026 regular season

The WNBA reported 3.8 million fans across a league-record 330 regular-season games in 2026, with average attendance of 11,474 per game. The total is rounded in the league’s report, while the game count and average are stated separately. The 2026 average exceeded the reported 2024 average of 9,807. These two season figures show a difference in reported averages, but do not by themselves explain the change.

The league recorded 212 sellouts in 2026, representing 64% of regular-season games. It reported that this was 33 more sellouts than in 2025. The Toronto Tempo–Dallas Wings game at Bell Centre in Montreal on July 10 drew 20,996 fans, a WNBA single-game attendance record. The 2026 All-Star Game at Chicago’s United Center drew 19,487, a record for an All-Star Game.

The measures describe distinct parts of the attendance picture: season totals accumulate crowds across games, averages report attendance per game, sellout rates describe the share of games reaching capacity, and event records refer to one occasion. Together, the cited reports document NCAA Division I championship crowds and NBA and WNBA attendance at specified seasons and events, while leaving other levels and competitions outside their scope.

Source: WNBA, “WNBA’s Landmark 30th Season Delivers Record Growth Across the League”.

Sources

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