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| Tuesday, November 21 Updated: November 22, 10:30 AM ET Ticket prices explain fan apathy By David Aldridge Special to ESPN.com |
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Let me be clear. Tickets for NBA games cost too much. Way too much. Too much for regular families to go regularly. Too much for fan bases to be sustainable. Too much for anyone other than the very rich -- which impacts the intensity levels of crowds around the league. I got hooked on the NBA because my father -- not every night, but enough times -- was able to scrape together a few bucks to take me to see the Bullets. (Trust me. They used to be good.) I fell in love with the red, white and blue of Washington's home jerseys; the orange and blue of the Knicks' road unis. I got attached to the noise of the fans and the way the PA guy would flow "EEEEEEEEEE" when Elvin Hayes hit a turnaround. I got an autograph from Elgin Baylor, who was doing color for CBS. I remember all of this because most of the time, I was sitting in the first row of the upper bowl. A perfectly fine seat for $14. I wasn't at the top of the building, where it seems another game is being played. I was -- at least it seemed like it to my pre-teenage mind -- in the middle of the action. Unfortunately, when you look around the league's arenas nowadays, the primary place where you see kids is in section 420 or 540. Seriously. Look around. See how many kids are in the lower bowls these days. Or is it people in power suits, on cell phones? Or, more accurately, do you see empty seats where the people in power suits are supposed to be, but aren't, because the seats are a writeoff in the first place? A dozen years ago, people began noticing the shift. When the Pistons moved from the Silverdome to the Palace, John Salley noted "we used to play in front of the auto workers. Now we play in front of the auto executives." The average ticket in the NBA now costs $51.02, according to the Team Marketing Report, which monitors the business of sports leagues. Add charges for food, drinks and parking, and that cost rises to $72.53 per person. Unless you're treating yourself alone to a game, you're probably going to pull two C-notes from your pocket if you throw in a program or a t-shirt for a nephew or niece. Who do you know that can do this a dozen times a year? Ten times a year? Five? Two? The Bulls, who are 1-9 at the time I write this (after winning 13 and 17 games over the previous two seasons), still charge an average of $52.84 per ticket. That, incredibly, only puts them in the middle of the pack. "It's a curious issue," deputy commissioner Russ Granik says. "The higher-priced tickets are not the problem. People want those tickets. Those tickets get sold out at just about every arena." True. The Knicks can charge whatever they want for courtside seats, and Spike, Woody and Co. will pony up. The Lakers can gouge their highest-paying customers blind, and Jack and Dyan will still be there every night. And I don't think that's unreasonable. An owner has the right to get whatever he or she can for his or her choicest seats. The cold reality is that the league's teams have to pay for the spasm of new buildings that have gone up over the last decade. Twenty of the league's 29 teams are either already playing in arenas less than a decade old or will be in a new building by 2004. Two more, Golden State and Seattle, are basically playing in new buildings -- their old arenas were gutted and renovated. And the Knicks play in a refurbished Madison Square Garden. All those fancy digs cost serious coin. And $22 million per team from television isn't enough. Here is what the league says. Since the end of the lockout, it has mandated each team to have at least 500 tickets for sale at $10 per seat. Some teams provide more. Some teams, like the Sonics, have actually cut ticket prices this season. Some teams are offering multiple-game, reduced-priced plans in the lower bowls. And anyway, most of the league's fans, it maintains, watch the games on television and never set foot in league arenas. "I really think families can go to our games," Granik said. "In some cases, it costs as much as, if not less, than going to the movies. So people can go to our games. But they're not the prime seats." But that's the key. What makes the NBA different from the other pro sports leagues is that visceral experience. You can see the players' faces. You hear their emotions. The contact, if not physical, is nonetheless palpable. The further away you are from the action, the less intense the feeling. (To those of you who point out that we in the media usually have choice seats on the floor that the vast majority of our employers don't pay for, I say you have a valid point. Still, airline tickets, hotel rooms and rental cars to those cities aren't free.) And at any rate, the experience needs to be reinforced. Once or twice a childhood doesn't get it done. Look, I'm not saying high ticket prices alone explain what even the most ardent NBA fan must acknowledge is a serious slump of fan interest. The league has to find that compelling star, or stars, that appeals not only to the hip-hop generation, but to the larger community. Jordan had it. Magic had it. Bird had it. Kobe might have it. That's what will ultimately get people interested again. But what people? And at what price?
Anderson's a happy Spur
"It was like a morgue," Anderson said. "Like it used to be in college. They took it personal, like you're supposed to." That was the best feeling Anderson had had when it comes to basketball in a while. This was why he came from the Clippers to the Spurs via free agency, turning down bigger bucks elsewhere to take San Antonio's $2.5 million exception. A chance to compete at the highest level again after floundering for two years. And so far, Anderson has done exactly what the Spurs hoped he would -- take pressure off of Tim Duncan and David Robinson. The Spurs are dangerous because even though Duncan is, in his own words, "above 80 and below 100" percent healthy, they're only allowing 89 points a night. Because Robinson feels better at this point of the season than he has in years. Because Antonio Daniels is allowing Avery Johnson to work his way in from a hamstring pull. Because Sean Elliott is on the floor again. And because of Anderson. "He can do it from all over the floor," Duncan said. "He's the slasher we didn't have before."
So far, Anderson's been a model teammate. He had some bad habits -- coach Gregg Popovich told associates he had to "de-Clipperize" Anderson when he got there. That losing attitude had started to get to him, too, Anderson admits. "Mo Taylor was there for three years with the Clippers," he said. "Once I got there, he was so fed up, that once we started losing, it didn't even bother him. When it don't bother you to lose that much, something's wrong." Now, Anderson's smiling. He's second on the Spurs in scoring, even though he's shooting under 40 percent from the floor. San Antonio doesn't care. The Spurs no longer feel like they are at a disadvantage when they play the Bryants and Finleys of the Western Conference. And Anderson no longer feels like a basketball nomad. "They haven't used me to score a lot, but I get wide-open shots," Anderson said. "Ever since I've been in the league, I've had to go one-on-one. With these guys, you do that just to put the pressure on the defense. You play your role. I haven't called an iso yet, and I'm still averaging about 15. That's beautiful. Beautiful guys. I'm staying here. They can pay me $20 a month. Just pay my rent. I'm staying."
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