It's been no secret that the Denver Nuggets have had atrocious attendance for the past few years. When I'm watching Nuggets highlights on social media, I always look to the comments section and see, "Why is it so empty?" and "Where are the fans at?". As a ride or die Nuggets fan, those responses infuriate me. If all the die-hard Nuggets fans could go to every home game, they would. The thing is, going to even 5+ games seems impossible for many Coloradans. Due to high prices and 3 straight losing seasons, things aren't going to get much better for the Nuggets' abysmal crowd. How can the Nuggets go back to putting butts into the Can's 18,007 seats again?

Beef up advertisements/promotions

I'm sure that if you ask anybody in Denver to name a player on the Broncos' current roster, you'd get at least 20 different responses, and they'd all be correct. Ask about the Nuggets on the other hand... Let's just say half the people wouldn't even get the answer right. Lakers fans would take up most of Twitter with tweets about how bright their future is if they had the team the Nuggets do. Denver has a team with the brightest future in the NBA, and we can't even fill up 75% of the Pepsi Center. The Nuggets need to inform the people of Colorado about what they're missing out on- but how?

Every NBA team nowadays has a Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook account. The Denver Nuggets run very successful Twitter and Facebook pages, comprised of highlights, interviews, pictures, and much more cool stuff. In contrast, their Instagram loves posting pictures of players- except that's all they do. It looks more like a gallery than a hub for fans to share and discuss. While Facebook and Twitter are mostly used by adults, Instagram is primarily used by ages 18-29 (including all the kids who lie about their age). This means that kids and younger adults don't even know what's going on with the Nuggets unless they care enough to follow fan pages! How can we interest future Nuggets fans to develop a significant interest in the team if they don't care to come to games in the first place?

Basically, the Nuggets Instagram needs some spice. The Los Angeles Clippers account, for example, is one of the best team pages on Instagram. On January 14th, the Clippers played the Lakers at 12:30 PM. From beginning to end, I count 12 posts related to the game, including game analysis, starting lineups, player pictures, sweet highlights, a final score, and a "Vote Chris Paul!" video. The Clips keep their fans involved and engaged with an average of 79 comments on each post. On ALL 4 posts since the Nuggets' London showdown with the Pacers, they have an average of 67 comments. 2 posts had 21 and 19 comments, and those were pictures of Jamal Murray talking as well as a Boomerang of a Bud Light can. However, the post of Jokic and Harris high-fiving captioned, "BIG WIN!!" drew the biggest response- 122 great comments. Also, a picture of Jokic similar to Jamal's drew 107 comments.

The Nuggets need to adopt a format similar to the Clippers. The Altitude TV crew always has amazing analysis- which could be integrated into a pre-game post. Pictures during the game are easy to get, and it only takes about 5 minutes to post one on Instagram. The same goes for highlights. With Jokic on the team, there will be at least one stellar assist every game! We already have final score posts, but we could use some more graphics on them. Maybe add something special, like post-game interviews, fan posts, or Rocky the Mountain Lion shenanigans from the game. With a rebooted Instagram, the Nuggets would attract more followers. More followers means more people going to the Pepsi Center, and a growing Nuggets team means more fans will be made every contest.

Lower the ticket prices

Captain Obvious alert. I know I'm not alone in wondering why the Nuggets insist on slowly raising the price of their already expensive tickets when they aren't exactly a "good" team. According to Barry's Tickets, the Nuggets average ticket price for the 2016-17 season is $90. They are more expensive than 19 other NBA teams which include the Houston Rockets, Los Angeles Clippers, and the Memphis Grizzlies! The Grizz's average ticket price is $42 less than Denver's! The only teams selling tickets more expensive than ours are either located in mega-cities or contending for the Playoffs (except for the Kings- who might be the only worse example than the Nuggets). The prices need to plummet, ASAP.

Through 19 home games this season, the Nuggets have averaged 13,653 fans in attendance. That may sound like a lot- if you're not familiar with the Pepsi Center's seat count of 18,007. Every night, approximately 4,354 seats are empty, and that's very noticeable. Almost the entire upper level is deserted, club level is mostly full, and the first level fluctuates depending on the night. Not very encouraging to a team that feeds off of energy. Kenneth Faried has been raving about the crowd in London's O2 Arena ever since Denver's obliteration of the Pacers. Coach Malone also had some things to say about how phenomenal playing in London was, including the fact that the Nuggets players were very comfortable in front of a sell-out crowd of 20,000. Imagine if Denver was able to produce 16,000 fans per game!

To sum it up, the average ticket price needs to be lowered by at least $10 for sales to improve. Nonetheless, the Nuggets organization needs to profit from ticket sales, which presents a short-term or long-term choice. If they do decide to lower all ticket prices by $10, it's reasonable to expect at least 500 more fans per game to start. That's all gum drops and lollipops, but the Nuggets' regular $1,228,770 sales off of the tickets would decrease to $1,132,240. That's a sizable $96,530 decrease in profit- not very attractive to the owners of the team. However, it is almost guaranteed that the organization would make much more money on merchandising and concessions.

All things aside, lowering ticket prices will require a compromise. We know the team wants more fans in the Can, and we also know that the organization likes money. I believe that if ticket prices are lowered, more fans will show up, leading to more publicity and in-stadium profits. The Nuggets will have an increased chance at winning due to the elevated crowd noise- and more wins means even more fans. Keeping the prices low will pay off when the Nuggets become an automatic playoff contender, allowing Denver to sell out the Pepsi Center almost every night. As soon as sell-outs are common, the ticket prices can slowly hike back up. This will have little to no effect on the crowd size, and we can finally make all the money mongers happy! Everything works out in the end, especially the Nuggets' win column.

At the end of the day, just put up wins in Denver. If the organization won't budge on the prices, the only thing that really puts fans in seats is wins. As the Nuggets improve in the future, I have faith that the crowds will be thunderous again!