In the Izod Center, empty seats and Brooklyn banners

Everyone knows that there's a difference between the number of tickets purchased or distributed to a sporting event and the actual number of people in the seats.

At the Izod Center in the Meadowlands, an antiquated arena with no public transit access, the Nets draw better on weekends or against good teams. Tuesday night's game was 1) a midweek game and 2) against the weak Memphis Grizzlies. Wrote David Waldstein in the Star-Ledger: There was an announced attendance of 12,092, but it looked more like half the chairs in the arena, which seats 20,032 for basketball, were purple banners explaining an impending move to Brooklyn.

Given that, in a best-case scenario, the move wouldn't happen until 2010, and quite likely 2011, the question remains as to whether the Nets will consider a move, however temporary, to the Prudential Center in Newark.

Photo from the 11/28/07 New York Times. Click to enlarge.