I do not understand your first point. It is now three weeks since I have done this, and my merch income is roughly 7k less per week while my salary is 30k less. I don't think that keeping my level 7 PR guy and his bloated salary would have gotten me 23k more in t-shirts and foam fingers.
The difference between the finals game I hosted and the first game of this season was not nearly what I expected it to be considering I raised bleacher prices to max for the finals. I will monitor the attendance but I believe winning is what puts butts in seats, not PR guy level. If I drop my prices to 12 bucks for the next home game I can almost assure you I will sell out the bleachers.
Once I scored a basket that still makes me laugh.