The San Antonio Spurs will likely be racing to the bottom of the standings next season, but they may emerge from it at the top of NBA history in one notable metric.
Marc J. Spears of Andscape reported this week that the Spurs will return to the Alamodome for one game next year to celebrate their 50th anniversary season. On Jan. 13, 2023, they will be playing the Golden State Warriors at the stadium, which is set up to hold over 65K fans. Spears adds that the current NBA record for attendance at a regular season game is 62,046 (set by a Chicago Bulls-Atlanta Hawks game at the Georgia Dome in Mar. 1998).
NBA games can usually seat a third of that crowd — Chicago’s United Center currently has the highest capacity of any NBA home arena at 20,917. But the Alamodome, where the Spurs played from 1993-2002, can house far more thanks to its football-style seating configuration.
Since San Antonio’s roster is headlined by the likes of Keldon Johnson and Jakob Poeltl, if they break the NBA attendance record, it will be off the backs of the defending champion Warriors. But Spurs-Warriors has always been an intriguing grudge match in the last several years for many different reasons.