I don’t 100% agree with this. I grew up a sidewalk fan (no idea how), and until I moved out of Georgia in 2005, I attended 2 games a year. Growing up in the 80’s-90’s in Gwinnett County there were more sidewalk GT fans I went to school with than you think mainly due to hoops under Bobby. Problem is, the school (GT) itself doesn’t market sports well at all to kids. Even in the 90’s-early 2000’s the other school does a better job marketing themselves to all types of fans. So fast forward to now, the product overall on the field and on the court have been bad for 7 years. You’re not going to build any kind of base’ with a poor product while programs around you west, north, and east are winning titles. And truthfully in a city / metro area the size of Atlanta, there is absolutely no excuse for under 40k a game.
Not that it’s the same in many ways, but South Carolina has been pretty much hot garbage for 90% of their history, and sell out pretty much every game.