"They twisted my arm," Farnham said.

Farnham probably will go to six or eight Blazers games this season, he said, but will not buy a new set of season tickets "until they start winning a lot again."

Just over a decade ago, Oregon was in a state of delirium over its Blazers. Then came years of fan anger from player misconduct and misdeeds. Now, the Blazers face a new challenge: apathy. At tipoff of the home opener, which used to be a gala event in Portland, hundreds of seats sat empty and hundreds more were filled by fans who used free tickets.

"Angry fans will come to the stadium because they want to boo and get their anger out," said Rich Honack, adjunct associate professor of marketing at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. "Indifferent fans just go look for something else to do."

Yet despite fielding a young team not expected to win many games, the Blazers are betting that hard work, a respected coach and an honest marketing approach will help them coax fans back to the arena.

The good news for the Blazers: They seem to have stopped the bleeding.

Attendance stabilized last season. Fans have embraced new coach Nate McMillan, whose hard-earned reputation as a disciplinarian with the Seattle SuperSonics could help a Blazers roster whose average age is 24.3.

Perhaps most notably, a team that had become known nationally as the "Jail Blazers" has gone without a public arrest since former player Qyntel Woods' foray into dogfighting in October 2004.

Kevin Alvord, coach of junior varsity boys basketball at Portland's Grant High School, wrote a letter to The Oregonian's sports editor in January saying he was "embarrassed to be a Blazers fan." Blazers forward Darius Miles had cursed repeatedly at then-coach Maurice Cheeks during a team film session, and Alvord criticized management for a two-game suspension he viewed as weak.

Nine months later Alvord has a few reservations about the team but says, "things are getting better." He praised the hiring of McMillan to replace the fired Cheeks, whom many fans regarded as an admirable man without the backing or temperament to discipline players.

There have been other signs of life. Of 350 Portland metro-area residents contacted by a Blazers-hired firm last month, 71 percent said the team was headed in the right direction. That was up from 60 percent last October, a Blazers official said. Also, full- and partial-season ticket sales are up 21 percent from last season, said Todd Taylor, the Blazers' vice president of ticket sales and service.

"I think there's a sense of hope out there," longtime fan Terry Cavanagh of Portland said, "that things are correcting themselves." Some fans still reluctant

Not everyone is convinced. After years of problems including drug arrests and a fistfight in practice, home attendance declined from 20,369 in 1999-2000, when arena capacity was greater, to 16,594 last season.

The team won approval by dumping some of its more notorious players. But that left the Blazers with a relatively anonymous roster that has failed to generate excitement.

Weeks before Saturday's home opener, for instance, the Blazers gave Sherwood's Archer Glen Elementary 1,500 free tickets to the game as part of a reading-promotion program.

Pete Miller, principal of the 700-student school, said the students were thrilled to get the tickets, along with a visit from young players Sebastian Telfair and Martell Webster. Yet the size of the giveaway foreshadows a tough sell for the Blazers this season.

The team's latest advertising and marketing efforts show no panic.

Current print ads acknowledge that the Blazers' new players are "bound to make a few mistakes along the way," an unusual concession for a paid advertisement. Four new TV ads use clips from Blazers practices -- raw footage of a raw team -- and focus on McMillan's hard-nosed yet fair style.

"There's no question he's our best messenger right now," said Art Sasse, the Blazers' vice president of communications.

Challenges ahead

Without a winning team to market, it could be a slow climb back to a state of adoration. Sports-bar managers in the Portland area said preseason anticipation for the Blazers' season was tepid.

"To be brutally honest," said Christian Griffin of the Ram Restaurant and Big Horn Brewing Co. in Lake Oswego, "there's been no buzz whatsoever."

Dave Brookens, who watched Wednesday's season opener against Minnesota at the Jolly Roger sports bar in Southeast Portland, said "I'd rather have all the malcontents back and be competitive."

Instead the roster is full of players that many fans don't recognize.

In fact, G.I. Joe's -- a longtime Blazers sponsor and supporter of local sports teams -- delayed its release of personalized jerseys because there were few obvious ones to market.

"We understand that we need to earn the fans' patience this year because we do have a new team," the Blazers' Sasse said. "We need to be real about that. The effort and the energy may not always be reflected in the score."

Yet there are signs of life.

Alan Johnson, regional president of Wells Fargo, said the bank's signing of a five-year, seven-figure deal to be a flagship Blazers sponsor has been well-received by employees, customers and the public.

"I guess I say I've been a little bit surprised because it's been overwhelmingly positive," Johnson said. "I haven't had a single person tell me they thought we were crazy."

Mike Scheckla, the Blazers' long-haired, tie-dye-wearing superfan, said he stopped spending money on the team a few years back because he disagreed with personnel decisions by former president Bob Whitsitt. (Scheckla still accepted free tickets from friends, however, so he could go to games.) Now, he says he is back in full support of the Blazers.

"I don't think any real fan ever left," Scheckla said.

Some still wait for a reason to return.

"It's all anecdotal, but what we're hearing out there is that there's a huge hunger and a thirst to embrace this team," Sasse said. "There's still some caution, but I think we've got to provide the excuse to Portland and Oregon to throw their arms back around this team again."