I moved to VA from Montgomery County last year. The erosion in the fan base I think is at least in part what the Harris group article indicates, an apathy that developed due to the poor management and ultimately toxic culture of the franchise from the top down.
The minute Snyder decided to sell the team I started to see more burgundy and gold jerseys and fan wear out there. It wasn't a tidal wave, but it was significant.
Much of that was pre-Commanders, so Harris has some work to do in building THIS brand name. But I have seen McLaurin and Sweat jerseys as well.
While DC still has a significant minority of transient residents (as it always has), there are a great number of folks that were born here to parents from other places that simply tuned this team out and vowed not to invest time and money into it as long as Snyder owned it.
True, some of us were wondering at his age whether we would live to see new ownership
But I think in some regards Harris' experience with the 76ers is a lot like Washington's football team.
The 76ers were a great franchise in the 1970's - early 1990's and were continually sold out.
By the time Harris bought the team the 76ers were near the bottom of the NBA in attendance and local revenue. Nobody wanted to come to Philly to play and the draft picks were god awful with some big whiffs on high picks.
Now they are back in the playoffs, going to Game 7 of Round 2, and are back up in attendance and local revenue to the level one would expect of a metro area the size of Philly's.
As Magic Johnson said recently in an interview about DC sports 'it's all about the winning'.
And I think that is also true.
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