INDIAN WELLS — With the constant news about the economic crisis, what the BNP Paribas Open did this year appears to defy logic.

For the third consecutive year, the BNP Paribas Open set an attendance record, attracting 332,498 fans to the Indian Wells Tennis Garden, topping 2008's total of 331,269. Part of the record was due in part to the tournament adding an evening session for the first Thursday, which drew 13,222 fans.

“All in all, Charlie and I are absolutely ecstatic at what's happened to this tournament. The last two years have seen it,” said Raymond Moore, who along with Charlie Pasarell are majority owners of the tennis tournament. “Seems the Californian public have finally embraced this event and actually realized the magnitude of it, and maybe that's the reason why we've had the attendance figures.”

One thing that helped the tournament was the mild weather throughout. Temperatures peaked at 91 degrees on three days last week, and several nights were balmy.

As good as the attendance has been, Moore and Pasarell know it could be even better. Capacity at the 54-acre Indian Wells Tennis Garden is 25,000 based on their occupancy permits. The record for a day session in the tournament was set March 14 this year with 22,934. And the day before, the tournament announced that no more tickets were available.

Part of the reason the tournament hasn't reached full capacity is parking. On-site parking for the tournament allows for approximately 7,000 cars. The tournament wants to add more parking so they can allow more people to attend during the busy middle weekend, when the top stars are playing their opening matches or hitting on one of the practice courts.

“We actually took the decision to stop selling tickets, because we thought we didn't want to annoy our spectators who had a ticket and found that they had to park 10 miles away,” Moore said. “We could've sold more tickets.”

To be fair, Moore also points out the city has offered its parking lot on the northwest side to help with the overflow parking, which is approximately a 1,000 cars.

But he said the tournament needs more. One suggestion Moore has made was allowing the tournament to park cars at the golf course, similar to what they do at Wimbledon and at the Rose Bowl.

“I continue to badger the city about letting us park on their golf course, and they won't let us right now,” Moore said.

Moore said the tournament has explored building a parking structure, but it proved to be cost prohibitive. Each parking bay would cost $10,000 to build.

“So to charge 10 bucks parking, it takes a long time to get the $10,000 back for one bay. So it's very expensive,” Moore said. “I think all sporting events, you struggle with the parking.”

About the only blemish for the tournament has been its domestic television coverage. This is the second year Fox Sports Network had the broadcasting rights. They increased their coverage to 39 hours.

However, despite the upgrades, there continues to be complaints about FSN's coverage. One of the complaints concerned how FSN stopped coverage on Wednesday night before the epic Rafael Nadal vs. David Nalbandian match.

Nadal took nearly three hours to rally from a set down and saved five match points to beat Nalbandian 3-6, 7-6 (5), 6-0 in the fourth round. Not only was the match not televised, there didn't appear to be a taped replay available.

Among the disappointed fans was Moore, who had left for home for the night, hoping to catch the match on television.

“I can't blame television for that. They allot a certain amount of hours for the coverage. They have other contracts, other sports, and other things (to televise),” Moore said. “I was very disappointed, obviously, as a tennis fan, but I couldn't criticize TV for that. These are the things that are part of the business.”

While there have been complaints, Moore said they have been happy with FSN's telecast. Part of the reason is, former broadcaster ESPN trimmed its coverage 12 hours, with four of those hours a taped delay of the men's semifinal for 3 a.m.

“So it just wasn't even a choice,” Moore said. “So Fox Sports Net has really come to the table. It's great to have another major television channel interested in the sport.

“So we're trying to navigate our ship through these waters and get the best coverage we can, and Fox stepped up to the plate with 40 hours. Compared to ESPN's, it's not even close. And Fox have embraced the sport. They're making an investment. We're glad to have them as our partners.”

However, both Moore and Pasarell are quick to point out that worldwide, the tournament has 3,000 hours of live coverage total, particularly in Europe. Because of that, men's finalist Andy Murray played most of his matches at the start of the day, so it could be televised in the UK during prime time.

“So our ratings in the rest of the world for this tournament are phenomenal,” Moore said. “I get calls every single day of this tournament from South Africa. ‘Oh, the tournament is great. Saw you and Abe Siegel sitting in the front row.' The coverage is going worldwide, so we are really happy.”