I watch rockets games on TV from far and wide and all I see is empty seats, red seats everywhere. What's the problem? There is a city in Washington that would give all they had for a team. Yet htown fans don't fill the arena as they are supposed to. One day I will go to htown and I will go to a game, no matter the cost.
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Just because you see see seats, doesn't mean the tickets aren't sold...and it doesn't mean the fans aren't in the building. Toyota Center is designed so people can entertain business relationships. There are bars all along the lower seating area....and all sorts of seating up there in those areas. So you can buy a ticket...be at the game rooting for the team...and not be in your seat at all.
outside of cf, do pple in houston even know what basketball is? i dont think so lmao high school football more popular than nba basketball haha
We'll what you are seeing not filled is usually is the side baselines of the lower level which is considered the CLUB section. CLUB SECTION -usually corporate or wealthy season ticket holders -a lounge for view the game -sometimes access to Lexus lounge by rockets locker room -Better food -own rocket shop -double The amount of a seat one seat over that is not in that section -you get a sideline view of the floor So a lot of business have season tickets to that CLUB section and don't even show up unless it's a big name team in town or on a Friday or weekend day, & if they are there they can be in one of the 2 lounges eating drinking and not in their seat. OTHER SEATS if you look in upper levels, and lower levels corners and behind the goal it's usually filled. these tickets are reasonably priced and this is where most big rockets fans sit. Not saying it's not big rocket fans in the club section. but in the club section you will see more casual dressed people older crowd vs fans with red shirts jerseys on in the other section. This year I expect to see the club level more filled because of the amount of season tickets they've sold. & the team is better and has bigger names so those people with club season tickets will come out more often.
As much as I hate to say it, Houston just isn't a big 'sports city.' Sure, we have plenty of devoted fans, but it's nothing like other cities in country. We're plagued with mostly bandwagon fans. You cant compare football and basketball, as you'll see across the country that football games are, in general, much more popular than basketball. Except for maybe a small handfull of basketball teams, most cities wont have a crazy attendance numbers without a super star. I think it's just the nature of the sport... and the culture of the city doesn't help.
I think that makes Houston more of the rule and less of the exception. There are very few markets that support pro sports franchises regardless of whether they're a winner or not. Most of those markets are ones where the NBA team is the only game in town. And it hasn't helped that this franchise has only won one playoff series in about 16 years. I think all that changes for the Rockets this season, though.
We folllow the 'rule,' however with the size of the city, we should naturally have a larger fan base. But, our fan base is disproportionately weighted with bandwagon fans. And yes, we will now follow the 'rule' because we now have a super star. Basketball, for the average sports fan, is much more difficult to watch without a star player... Maybe 'difficult to watch' isn't the right phrase... harder to get excited about without a star player? IDK, you know what I mean.
I don't think the size of the fan base is any less than it is in most cities. Our teams are a helluva lot younger than those in Boston, Chicago and NY. We don't have a franchise that has 26 world championships...or that won 8 titles in a row. Real easy to build generations of fans from that. Much more difficult to do in a city that has two titles in about 50 years of pro sports. Relative to the very little success these franchises have had here, I think Houston fans show up pretty well. Our NFL franchise has never not had a sellout...the Astros drew over 3 million fans 4 times since they moved to MMP (and frankly, I was shocked and impressed they didn't finish dead last in attendance this last season given the recent track record)...and the Rockets play in a league where the second season (the playoffs) is the season; and aside from one playoff series win, they don't have much to show for that in well over a decade.
The Rockets are printing money, even when they're not great on the court. They're not going anywhere.
Houston has cheap cost of living and tons of jobs. This city's inhabitants tend to care primarily about responsible things such as making ends meet and raising a family. Investing emotions and money into a sports team would be the opposite of that (Though I am Rocket's fan and invest both of these things in them). In all honesty this isn't a mature attitude by Seattle. 99.9% of the the citizen's of Seattle's lives will not be made better by having a basketball team. That's not really something to be proud of.
It's because of our God awful spacesuit uniforms. No one wants to sit through a whole game seeing those ugly things live.
I know many people root for their hometown and a certain sports club is affiliated with a city, but to me personally a team / club and the city it is situated in are not related. I could root for the Rockets, regardless of which city it was in because of the history it has. I know it's never going to move but sometimes I wish it would move to a basketball city where fans would embrace the team fully. I'm so envious when I see games in Portland, Frisco, Seattle back in the day, even Oklahoma City where games are usually packed! I do admit that during the playoffs, Rockets fans do show up which is when we need it the most. The whole club section idea needs to go, I'm sure they can do without that business.
I wonder the same thing living here in Washington, DC. I never miss the one game a year the Rockets play the Wizards in DC. I plan to go to htown this year for a few games. On TV it looks bad with all the empty seats.
I will be there courtside this Monday. Thanks to company sponsored ticket. Can't afford it, or even if I can, I won't until they fix CSN sh.t.
The city of Houston as a whole is still growing up as a "Houston" fanbase. We get tons of transplants who bring their own loyalties with them to Houston, and those transplants including Mexican immigrants (those raised in Mexico) account for a large portion of our population. The deep rooted Texans tend to be extremely football heavy, so in that respect the Rockets are losing fans on both ends. Combine that with the fact that the rockets haven't had a true playoff run in 16 years. The one decent run we did have ended with Yao out for all of the next season, so they really didn't get to carry any momentum from it. But I think the kids of the transplants and a lot of the long term transplants themselves are starting to fill in. The Astros maintained really good attendance numbers all the way through 2011 when the franchise started to completely bottom out. If the Rockets are as good as we hope they are, the Rockets become an attraction and not merely a cool place to hold a meeting. I could easily see a Maverick-like turnaround from this fanbase. Gotta win first, and thats the case with most fanbases in the NBA, not just us.
