Man I'm at the game and this crowd is a dead as I can remember our fan base for the rockets is terrible..... I praise OKC and golden state fans
Feel for ya man. Never been to a game on Sunday because of church. That's always gonna be a problem in the bible belt. Doesn't help that the crowd sucks in general anyway.
The Toyota Center was not built to harness the energy of the crowd. The lower bowl is cavernous and the seating is not close to the court. Les chose luxury over an intimate setting. Sad. Post
it wouldn't matter how it was built if the problem is the crowd being dead or people not showing up first and foremost. TC has shown during games with the likes of GS that it can be loud and an electric atmosphere. The issue is its not an every game thing like other places like GS, okc, etc that have loud crowds who show up to every game
Looking at the seats, probably the color red, and how wide the seats are, kind of hurts the whole setup. I made sure to pay as close attention as possible to our road games, they're really not that far off from TC. The seats in TC just make the crowd look wayyyy more empty than it really is.
The space does matter. The thing about tighter, more intimate arenas, is that even when the crowd isn't REALLY loud the compact arena magnifies it. Then when they do get loud it is crazy. Right now at Toyota Center it's hard to get momentum started in the crowd because sound dissipates so easily. So small groups getting rowdy make zero impact.
that too. Its weird because when you go to the games it looks like a packed place but it doesnt translate if you watch a game on TV. upper bowl of course was insanely packed. Also the crowd being weak didnt help with the inconsistent officiating.
the space will only matter once you get the people to show up first and not just sit and watch quietly.
It also loses the contagiousness of small crowds getting rowdy. In other arenas, their equivalent of the Red Rowdies is able to hype the crowd up because it feels like they're sitting right next to you. In Toyota Center, they feel like they're in another zip code.
The Houston crowd is not passionate about this team, or NBA basketball, and hasn't really been so since the Yao era (which was still a fraction of the passion they showed from 95-98). Houston has to fully embrace this Rockets team. They have yet to do so. You see how Houston gets behind their teams once they do that. What will cause them to do that? Probably a title... given that a deep playoff run ending with losing to GSW doesn't really change much from what happened 2-3 years ago (especially since that team followed-up that season with one of the all-time disappointing Rockets seasons ever with Dwight's last year).
Yeah, I agree that the crowd sucks. IMO, I think there's too many football fans across Houston. Surprisingly small amount of people in Htown actually care about basketball. Most of the folks I've met are huge Cowboys/Texans fans. Lots of bandwagon fans from Astros. Probably, that's how it's gonna end up happening for the Rockets too.
And yet they still pay him $5 million dollars a year to chat with his friends on a pod-cast. He also gets to make documentaries about Andre the Giant. He'll be fine.
There are plenty of diehard fans here for each sport. In a city with more than 6 million people, its hard not to have that. The Astros have a strong following because they've been in Houston the longest. More generations of fans have grown up with them. Football is king in Texas, but its usually not either/or with any of those fans. Plenty of football fans also support basketball/baseball with the same passion. Houston has to really love a team to get behind it. They've loved/embraced basketball teams here in the past. Phi Slamma Jamma was a city-wide phenomenon. The 86 Rockets were superstars amongst the city. The 90's Rockets only got the full attention of the city AFTER the first championship, and that love affair lasted for 4 years (augmented some by the spotlight of having 3 mega-stars at the same time). The Yao era brought a new fan base to the equation. It also wasn't so long removed from the championship days that there was some holdover effect. Now? Its been a good 20+ years since a title, and this team followed up its deepest playoff run since with an embarrassing dud of a season that resulted in a coach getting fired and getting rid of a supposed franchise player. There's absolutely no reason why Houston should have an attachment to this Rockets team yet... but there is also absolutely no reason why they wouldn't if they actually did win it all.
this is most likely but unfortunately the average person still knows who GS is and how they're automatically the overwhelming favorites to win And yes the astros now have an abundance of bandwagon fans after their WS win
I didn't think he would starve... doesn't take away from the huge professional failure and embarrassment he suffered.. I think his star has definitely fallen somewhat since his high point.
His newly created media/podcast network is already one of the biggest in the nation... and this is off the heels of Grantland. HBO still pays him $5 million/year and it will likely go up at his contract renewal. Not sure why you think simply because his live talk show failed, its been a "huge professional failure and embarrassment". He's a columnist first... and his columns are still some of the most read/most-retweeted. Lastly... we're going on a 15 page thread about a throw-away comment he made on his podcast... I think that says enough about the impact his opinions creates more than anything.
I remember back in the summit days when you could go down from the nosebleeds to the lower bowl seats after the third quarter. Maybe they can start doing that again. So many games, people won’t miss it.
