Orlando Magic Daily
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Orlando Magic Daily Podcast Episode 86: Searching for the Orlando Magic fan with Orlando Weekly

By Philip Rossman-Reich

Fans cheer during the Charlotte Hornets at Orlando Magic game at the Amway Center in Orlando, Fla., on Friday, April 6, 2018. The Hornets won, 137-100. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel/TNS via Getty Images)
Fans cheer during the Charlotte Hornets at Orlando Magic game at the Amway Center in Orlando, Fla., on Friday, April 6, 2018. The Hornets won, 137-100. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel/TNS via Getty Images) /
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The Orlando Magic completed another difficult and frustrating season. Their fans are seemingly at a strange place. What is the state of the Magic fan today?

The final game of the Orlando Magic’s season was full of joy and excitement. In that last day of school sort of way.

Many fans were cheering for a loss hoping the team would keep its lottery position. The announced 17,598 fans in attendance (93.3 percent of capacity) did not seem to care. They were cheering on a team playing a singular game and having a good time out.

There is always that tension between the fans in it for the long haul and the fans who show up for that one game. The casual fan and the die-hards.

But being a Magic fan these days has been inordinately tough.

Six years of a rebuild have yielded little in the way of future assets or hope for the fan base. The team completed another disappointing and disheartening 25-win season. And now a complete rebuild seems on the way again — the team not only fired its entire coaching staff but also its training and strength and conditioning staff.

Outside of the bubble of the intense fandom, finding out how casual fans engage with the Magic is still a bit strange. Six years of losing can suck the life out of a franchise. And it certainly has put Orlando in a precarious position.

In this week’s issue of Orlando Weekly, Xander Peters went searching for the Orlando Magic fan. It started with trying to understand how a super fan like Dennis Salvagio (aka The Fat Guy) could stick with the team through years of losing and keep the faith. It was meant to be a story of hope.

But as he quickly found out, there is still a lot of indifference:

"So what happened to the Magic? While hard-core fans like Salvagio have maintained their love, honor and obey approach, other local sports aficionados have opted to cuss, holler and pray. How much longer will fans have to wait until that abracadabra moment, when everything finally comes together? How much longer can the Magic continue its losing ways before a mutiny between team and fans takes place?"

These are the questions that likely drive everyone crazy these days. Winning will obviously bring the fans back. But why is there no excitement for the team? Or is there a dormant excitement and interest in the team?

Figuring out where Magic fandom stands is an intriguing prospect. Some signs suggest it is strong… and others suggest it is not.

According to Basketball-Reference, the Magic had 734,531 total fans in paid attendance this year — 16th in the league. That is an average of 17,915 fans per game, about 95.1 percent of capacity. The team sold out plenty more games than their record would indicate.

The work from the Magic’s marketing department to sell tickets and fill the building has been exemplary. Yet, no one is willing to say Magic fandom is strong either. Orlando City still dominates the outward expressions of fandom despite their own struggles and finding someone to throw a Magic game on at the bar is still a chore.

Culturally and on the national scale, the Magic are the butt of the joke. Magic fan Kevin Clark of The Ringer discussed the team’s descent into madness. And David Ramil of The Step Back detailed the weirdness of that final night.

The state of the Magic fan is as much a difficult frustration as anything else for the franchise. How do you build a fan culture as robust as your team’s culture after six years of losing?

That was what I wanted to discuss with Xander Peters following the release of his article. On this episode of the Orlando Magic Daily Podcast, we discuss the state of Magic fandom and where the team stands today:

On This Episode:

  • How does a superfan deal with six years of losing?
  • The sociology of Orlando Magic fans
  • How do fans in Orlando relate to the teams in the city? Both Orlando City and the Orlando Magic as they grew up.
  • How have other fans reacted to their franchise’s struggles? What has made Orlando different?
  • How does a team keep constant engagement with fans? Is the NBA set up for this outward fandom with losing teams?
  • What makes the NBA different? How do the Magic find their star to be the face of the franchise?

Next: Ricky's NBA Draft Big Board

Be sure to check out Xander’s article in this week’s Orlando Weekly — you can also read it here. You can also follow Xander on Twitter @HipXander.

Also, subscribe to Orlando Magic Daily’s daily podcast, Locked On Magic, on Panoply, iTunes, Stitcher and TuneIn.