[Chron/Solomon]Toyota Center: Worst atmosphere in the NBA?

Yeah! Let's blame Yao, McGrady, Artest, Rafer and Luther Head on this! Also include Les, Morey and Adelman! START THE RANT PEOPLE!!

 

Yup, I am almost glad I cannot afford those tickets, because I would probably spend 100% of the time looking at the power dancers instead of watching the game.

I think they should allow people from the upper bowl to come down in the 4th quarter if there are available seats. It would sure as hell be good for the players.

 

Yes, and it might even be worse actually. Here in Portland the Blazers are pretty much all we've got as far as Pro teams go. Actually it IS all we have. Portland has always had great fan support from the Bill Walton championship era to Rip city Clyde Drexler era to where they are now with Oden and Broy. Believe it or not there was decent support even in the Jail Blazer era.

The point is it's not fair to compare Houston to Portland because Blazers are naturally the main draw here. I'd kill to go to a game at Toyota Center. It is one of the things on my need to/would like to do list.

 

Definitely for a big city we are pathetic.

 

As a player, kinda hard to get motivated when you get on the court of a nationally televised game against your biggest rival at home, and 10% of the lower bowl is filled up.

I partially blame the fans for our slow start in the 1st quarter last night.

 

can someone bring back the " which politician would you want as your rockets gm" thread? I remember a humble but clever poster introduced a glorious plan called " the great new jump step foward". It was basically a blue print to bring back that lost spirit of 1994 into the new arena.

thanks in advance

 

The owner sucks! We were like Dallas til Cuban came in...

 

When I come over and buy my season tickets for 2009/10 - you guys better have lifted your game.

What happened to the Red Rowdies?

 

well if we had Lebron starting for us.. I think the TC would be packed too.

 

I agree with this completely! My wife works in a company where they occasionally get free tickets. Of course whenever we're free, we make the trip and show our support for the team. Occasionally, the other douche bags end up getting the tickets and all of a sudden they become a fan of the game - despite the fact that none of them don't even know who's in the starting line up. So they get bored usually, and leave their seats to go eat and shop. Soon after (usually right after half-time), the douche bags go home with their souvenirs to show how they're "true fans".

 

this is the dumbest logic ever. Right, forget the $40 million Tracy is owed over this year and next, forget the fact that 99%+ of everybody on the court, associated with the game or team on the court is in the upper class of America, and most of those in the way way way way upper class, it's the people paying them those salaries fault because they didn't show up?

Ridiculous.

Look, as a lower bowl season ticket holder, who coincidentally is always into the game but isn't a scream your head off like this is still college type fan, I am definitely biased. But, if you want to blame anyone, blame David Stern and Les Alexander. It's $125+ a ticket down there. Most are more or way more than that. What's more...the Rockets are 10+ years removed from playing a style, or with a success, that would lead to more or better fan attendance.

Forget club passes, or increased time to power dancers, or the prevalence of new, fancy gadgets to play with instead, the fact remains that the tickets cost too much and the team is too boring and regularly either missing the playoffs or getting eliminated, for that many people to really deserve to care. Still, for the most part, during big games, and especially during the playoffs, that place rocks it...better then the Summit (and I was at Game 7 against the Knicks). When people are paying attention, and do care, the Toyota Center is loud and an awesome experience.

So, yeah....it's the fans fault.

How about all the players, and Les, either give away for free or the players buy all the lower bowl tickets and give them away. At the end of the day, then you'd just have players and owners no longer making abnormal returns on their product (gasp...T-Mac would only be a millionaire instead of a multi-millionaire)....

PLUS, I can guarantee you that it wouldn't change one iota the performance of the team. A packed house doesn't help the Rockets win that game. It doesn't matter how many people are in the arena...if you can't figure out after 3 baskets in a row that Jason Terry is on fire, it has nothing to do with attendance, or fan enthusiasm, it has to do with your basketball talent and iq. If T-Mac, Barry, Hayes, Artest & Co. can't put out a consistently good (and playoff worthy) team at their current salaries, don't expect them to do any better when they are giving away some of it to increase fan attendance. Basically, they want to have their cake (fat paydays...fo shizzle!) and eat it to (fans to fork over huge chunks of their net worth to create one awesome atmosphere...golly-gee, that'd be great).

Look, call me Bitter in Houston if you want. Fact is, ESPECIALLY when you know if can be so much better, the effort, intensity, and inconsistency of this team is a difficult pill to swallow.

I still think they can win it all with this squad. I certainly think they can win 50+ games and make it to the playoffs. But what most on this board view as disrespect by the national media - be it in tv or magazine coverage, power rankings, gambling odds...or whatever, the real die-hards out there - that's right, those of us who actually fork over the ridiculous amounts that Les & Co. expect you to pay to see some live NBA basketball in this city - recognize as simply the facts of life. You don't bet on a horse that's underperformed so many years in a row.

I go to tons of games a year. i will continue to do so. But placing blame at the feet of the fans is just pathetic. if you're upset, please direct it towards Les, the players and the coaching staff.

the end!

 

I went to the Hornets game with my wife, daughter, and my nephew and we had a groovy time! Scored some free lower bowl tickets in the corner from a friend in Austin, about the 20th row, and had great sight lines. Sure, we would rather have been in the middle, even if far higher up in the lower bowl (or the upper bowl, for that matter), but just loved the experience. Maybe it's because I hadn't gone to a game in Houston for a long time, but after the late arrivals finally showed up, the place looked crowded and got fairly loud. We were across from the Rowdies and one of my first thoughts was that they should have another Rowdies section at the other end. The Rowdies make a BIG difference. Seems like double the Rowdies, double the noise, double the fun!

Houston has always been late getting behind a team (except for fans like us!), and they have to be winners. Not only winners, but consistently winning. Once that happens and they've gotten the fever, there aren't better fans anywhere.

 

okc got more seat fill than the rockets, pathetic.

 

this has nothing to do with the rockets, and EVERYTHING to do with classicism.

houston is currently an economic bubble, where a small percentage of the population make a lot of money, whereas the majority of the population of houston is black and mexican (and poor white people), thus, the fortunate white people that can afford to fill out the seats well, live pretty far away from the game (the suburbs and such), with families and whatever rich white people do with their bull**** lives, compare to utah or dallas where you have a large percentage of white rich people living close to the games and feel comfortable being apart of a white crowd enjoying their "product"

these terms if you look at them from an outside perspective are not only vulgar, but pathetic, obviously most people on this board particularly live and die rockets red, I know I do, but I can't 1 afford to go, or 2 have the time, cause 1 I work, or 2 I'm getting drunk for hating my life, the one few moments of excellence I have is finding a rockets game on when their on the road in another city with all those same rich white people (not always the case but a good chunk) and they whip the crap out of the team, it feels great, just to go home and see my boys lose in our own home stadium with 1 no fans and 2 no energy. They get energized with energy, screw trans national corporations that own those lower bowl seats, if all the people in the upper bowl moved down at once to the lower bowl after the half then no amount of library cops could do anything, and thus we would have the same crowd that garnished me with the happiest years of my life in 94-95, now all we have is joel osteen and scared defeated majority "money minorities" watching at home, killing each other, and killing themselves over people who post about "watching for hotties"

the product shouldn't matter, these are real players, playing a real game
and if you're a real fan, shutup and start taking back the seats you're owed.

 

Like tinman said.....there is always a thread about the crowd at TC, which has always been pathetic. It will never change.

Most likely we're going to get a Rockets corporate response from K-Dawg in this thread about why the lower bowl has to be filled by corporate a-holes.

Those bums in the Rockets marketing dept. need to come up w/ some creative promotions, incentives, and better propaganda for Rockets fans to show up. Here's an idea - if you show up to the game early and have a nosebleed seat, if a corporate phony doesn't show up for their seat by the 4th quarter, you get their seat. But that will never happen because they don't believe in the fans, but just the almighty dollar.

I've only gone to a handful of games in the past couple of years, but everytime I go, it's always the same crap that goes on during breaks and halftime at TC. The corporate jackasses who occupy the seats so they can do more work at a sporting event only decide to stand up and cheer when they start shooting up T-shirts into the lower bowl. YEAHHHHHHHHH, I GOT MY FREE T-SHIRT WHICH TOOK 5 DOLLARS TO MAKE!!!! YIPPIDDYDOOOODAHHHH!!

 

It shouldn't matter to fans with real passion for the team.


I used to see more excited crowds at Clippers games than the rabble that shows up in good matches at TC. It aint the quality of play that should matter.

 

You mean like Classic Rock? I voted for Jimi!

 

Honestly, I feel this is true of most professional sports these days. For example, here is an article from ESPN about similar NFL movement in stadium design and the people for whom the teams are catering.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page...tone/081121&campaign=rss&source=ESPNHeadlines

 

Yeah, i was about to say this and make a thread about it but too bad i can't do that anymore. (It would've been a good thread, not a dumb thread)

I was at the game early like usual.. I noticed one thing NO ONE WAS IN THE SEATS!!

exactly like what he said, when they started, almost nobody was in the arena until like half-time....-_- it was really quiet and all that stuff...especially when they had the loud meter thing....it was really stupid because it went up to the extreme like usual and it was quiet. @_@.......

anyway..where i sat, there was like 10 black dudes (from dallas) like holding signs up saying mavs are 4 real and standing up whenever they scored...it was crazy because no one in our section stood up to them or at least yell back go rockets or someting...however there was this one drunk indian guy screaming

"F the mavericks" continuesly at this girl with a mavs jersey on..seriously like 100times....i thought that was a little classless...he didnt really have to say it that much and he didnt ahve to say it infront of her face while banging the bangers. but other than that..the game was boring (due to the rockets playing bad and the stupid boring crowd)

 

If you get a true title-contending team in there that Houston starts to get excited about (like they were in 2004-05, or the 22 game winning streak), the fans will be great.

The best Houston fan-supported teams were from 1995-1997. 1994 was ok, but they weren't selling out every game (even during the 15 game win streak to start the season).