My attendance has indeed taken a SEVERE hit this season, and in my past game despite being 18-0 heading in, and having 5 balls on my fan survey, my attendance dropped down to 57%. So there is credibility to the discussion that missing the playoffs, or relegating affects your attendance in such a way that it taps into the short term savings you have by tanking or not paying salaries for 2 weeks during the post season.
Relegation absolutely destroys your attendance revenue. It's a MASSIVE hit that's completely unavoidable.
Missing the playoffs is only mildly unpleasant, but not debilitating in any way.
Millions of dollars difference between relegating or simply missing the playoffs and avoiding relegation for a D.I team. Probably $2m on the small scale, $5m on the high scale. I don't know if BBs are aware of how unrealistic the relegation penalty is. I'm pretty confident a 0-22 team would make more money than a 22-0 team that has just demoted if they were in the same league with the same expenses, same merchandise, same arena size, etc. Doesn't make much sense to me.