{"id":571743,"date":"2026-03-29T09:10:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T09:10:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/571743\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T09:10:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T09:10:20","slug":"game-3-attracts-biggest-crowd-in-nbl-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/571743\/","title":{"rendered":"Game 3 attracts biggest crowd in NBL history"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The excitement around the Hungry Jack\u2019s NBL26 Championship Series has seen Game 3 attract the competition\u2019s largest ever crowd.<\/p>\n<p>18,373 fans attended the sellout Finals fixture at Qudos Bank Arena on Sunday, as the Sydney Kings took on the Adelaide 36ers.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;[Today was] incredible,&#8221; Kings coach Brian Goorjian said on Sunday\u2019s post-game press conference.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Looking up at that sign on the door saying sold out, I&#8217;m really proud of what we built.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;A big part of this is taking advantage of the game of basketball in a series like this. Getting the city of Sydney behind this team by playing a style they embrace<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;To have 18,000 here today, I just think is huge for basketball.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;And to have a full house in Adelaide, I know they constantly do, but the energy in the two cities is really important for the game.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&gt;&gt; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbl.com.au\/news\/nbl26-championship-series-schedule\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Championship Series tickets, schedule &amp; more<\/a><\/p>\n<p>This mark eclipses the previous record of 18,124, which was again held by the Kings, set during Game 5 of their NBL23 Championship Series win over New Zealand.<\/p>\n<p>One man who was part of that previous high mark is current big man, Tim Soares.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s crazy [to play in front of a crowd like that],&#8221; Soares said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I was talking to my family and friends the other day, it was like, I wish you guys could all be out here to be a part of the 18,000, because it&#8217;s so unique.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Just being a part of those big moments where we had those and ones, those were very electric and very loud. The loudest I&#8217;ve ever heard it in here.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It was fun to be a part of it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The sellout is the competition&#8217;s 61st of the campaign.<\/p>\n<p>The 2025-26 season has been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbl.com.au\/news\/do-not-post-nbl-enters-new-golden-era\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a record-setting one for the NBL<\/a>, attracting its highest number of fans in history and the third straight season of more than 1,000,000 supporters attending games.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">HISTORY MADE \ud83e\udd79<\/p>\n<p>Today\u2019s crowd for Game 3 of the Championship Series at Qudos Bank Arena is officially the BIGGEST attendance in NBL history \ud83d\udcc8 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/To0goq4XkI\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/To0goq4XkI<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 NBL (@NBL) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NBL\/status\/2038123564981969018?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">March 29, 2026<\/a> <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1774775420_918_69ba3d951d002ba2b025a249_NBL26 Finals_Champs_Article Banner_1290x250.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The excitement around the Hungry Jack\u2019s NBL26 Championship Series has seen Game 3 attract the competition\u2019s largest ever&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":571744,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-571743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=571743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571743\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/571744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=571743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=571743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=571743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}