Ken Hoffman (Chronicle feature writter) new park-prices-unis

First time I have tried this. Hope it has not been done already.


April 28, 2003, 7:12PM

Uniforms to have Rockets' red flare
By KEN HOFFMAN
Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle
Let's get to the important stuff about the Houston Rockets' new downtown arena, which is set to open in September.

The arena will have the widest seats in the league, which only fits since, according to Men's Fitness magazine, Houstonians have the fattest rear ends in the country.

Not only will the seats be plus-sized, but there also will be extra room between rows, so people won't stick their tushes in other fans' faces as they "excuse me, excuse me," to their seats.

Here's a relief: The new arena will have many more restroom facilities than the Rockets' former home, Compaq Center.

The men's restrooms will have one urinal for every 55 fans. Compaq Center had one for every 182 guys. That explains the long lines and the creation of new dances at Compaq Center.

Women will have it even better. There will be one toilet for every 44 female fans. Compaq Center had one toilet for every 71.

More good news for men. The urinals will be farther apart than at Compaq Center. If Compaq Center was a little too close for comfort, the Astrodome's communal troughs were a nightmare.

The food at the new arena will be a giant step forward, too. The Rockets just hired Levy Restaurants out of Chicago to handle all the concessions, from the wine list in the gourmet VIP Restaurant to the candy booth in the upper deck.

Levy Restaurants will capitalize on our Southwest and Tex-Mex cuisines, plus offer "around the world" dining options. Of course you'll still be able to grab a hot dog and nachos, but come on, how boring.

Where Compaq Center toasted the arrival of Yao Ming with a footlong egg roll and Chinese beer, the downtown arena will have a whole menu of delicacies from several Pacific Rim nations.

Rockets owner Les Alexander has participated in several food tastings. He's hands-on when it comes to what goes in fans' mouths.


Cheaper by the dozens
Ticket prices will be higher, as expected, but there will more cheap seats, too. The new arena will have 5,500 seats for $25 or less. Compaq Center offered only 3,000 discount seats.

The Rockets will offer "family packages," where the price of a ticket will include food, a soft drink and a souvenir.

The Rockets haven't worked out an exact price list for tickets yet. Here's something different: The Rockets want to reward longtime, loyal season ticket holders, so those fans will pay less for their season tickets next year than new ticket-buyers will.

The Rockets will not use Ticketmaster. Again, the team is still working out details, but it plans to go with a relatively new ticket service called Vertical Alliance.

The advantage of Vertical Alliance is that fans will be able to buy tickets online, by telephone and at kiosks in shopping malls. One possible drawback: Vertical Alliance is new. Let's see how it handles the crunch of thousands and thousands of phone calls when a major concert goes on sale.

The Rockets hope to stage 30 concerts a year at the new arena. They have a short "wish list" for the opening-night performer, but nothing is signed or sealed.

The idea is to have an opening-night spectacular concert, featuring a performer with broad appeal, followed by a series of concerts with entertainers with niche audiences, like a country star, a hip-hop singer, a Tejano group and a children's act.


New uniform design
Regardless of whom the team drafts, trades or signs as a free agent, the Rockets will have a new look next season. The team has hired Academy Award-winning clotheshorse Eiko Ishioka to design new uniforms for the players.

Ishioka met with several Rockets, especially the team's GQ guys, Steve Francis and Cuttino Mobley. Most of the players hate the current uniforms, calling them "pajamas" because of their color and, yipes, stripes.

Ishioka won an Oscar for designing the costumes for Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula. That explains why preliminary sketches of the new uniforms point to red as the primary color.

Not the bright red the team wore during its championship seasons in the '90s, but a deep, lush, corpuscle red. The secondary color looks to be silver.

The Rocket Power Dancers will have new uniforms, too. It hasn't been decided if the cheerleaders will continue to wear T-shirts that say "Animals Have Rights" during the second half.

Here's one vote for keeping the animal rights gear.