One thing I noticed is that the fans have no emotional investment in the players whatsoever except for Yao. No one seemed to give a crap about cat, steve, mo, or jj. Pike gets some love, but it seemed like at the game yesterday, fans only wanted to cheer for Yao. I bet if Yao starts averaging 25 and 10 a game and Rockets hover around .500, attendance would be much higher. The fact is that Houston doesn't like the players on the team and that shows up in attendance.
I am not impressed with what they have done to make it appeal to the general public. Personally, I don't think they have the budget that is needed to really excel. DD
yeah..and what's up with people not drinking more Pepsi! idiots! Pepsi is awesome. we usually don't blame consumers for not spending money on a luxury item or on entertainment. we do with sports. i think that's funny. it couldn't be the organization's fault...could it? i mean, it's not their responsiblity to put a compelling product on the court and put fans in the seats...is it??
You gotta know about H-town. The Enron fiasco, real estate slump... This city needs some kick, not from oil.
Actually it partly is the marketing department's direct fault for this type of attendance. The organization has chosen (for good or bad) to try to boost attendance by focusing on a few "big" games and targeting those games with mini ticket packages and far more marketing and so forth. As a result, if you look at the progression of attendance there is a number of peaks and valleys in attendance associated with the marketing department's promotions and packages. Their goal is to sell out as many games as possible (i.e. the "peaks") and then eventually fill in the "valleys" as excitement builds about the team, if it ever does. They have chosen to pursue a method that creates these ups and downs, rather than a steady increase over time. The Golden State game is an example of a game that had no promotions tied to it like mini packages, etc. Thus, the arena is filled only with season ticket holders and a few walkups. This is the end result, less than 10,000 fans . . . I am in no way saying that the marketing department is wholely responsible for poor ticket sales, because that is obviously not true. People just aren't buying tickets because the product on the court is rather poor and no excitement has built around the city. However, what the organization is responsible for is attendance being so low in the Warrior game due to their sales tactics. I'm not saying it is the wrong tactic to pursue, just that it produces results like last night.
Nero, Your solution assumes the people who decided to live outside the loop are the ones who watch BB games live. Most of these folks choose to live outside the central areas because they are NOT interested in going to games and the such. Should the museum district and symphony be next to the Home Depot at Fry road? I don't think so....
I'll leave the rest of your post alone, because obviously nothing is going to come of arguing over it, but this is an excellent point. Someone else said that there is little emotional investment in the team except for (possibly) Yao. That's true, too. I think the attitude of the majority of people is: a) It's MY money, and your (the team's) job is to make me decide you're worth it. b) You're NOT my team if you threaten to move, ask for new stadiums, and then charge more for tickets and parking. Oh, and don't get people started on the fact that the league and Rockets don't even put Houston on the uniforms. The "civic pride" argument as why you should support your team and pay for tickets is BS. Going to a game a splurge expense now, not a thing you do for kicks. That's one reason I don't think it matters where you put a stadium; people won't show up unless the tickets are super-cheap to where they can just say "hey, I'll go to a game tonight" while driving home or the team is doing extremely well or the team is really fun to watch and becomes a national phenomenon (like the Mavs or Kings).
Could we do all this talk of the Houston sports scene/crowd in one of those threads? I want to see what people thought of the Robertson article.
Hopefully Yao will feel like he's got something to prove and have another 20/20 performance against Detriot. Then a 30/20 performance against the Knicks.
Is it not possible to work up a promotion like ten cent beer night for these bad games? Take a look at the ratings for the Monday Night football games which consists of 2 lame ducks. It's very similar. If they could do something different that doesn't require a lot of preplanning, it might boost ticket sales in the days before the game. At least recognize that the team they are playing sucks, so they should say walkups get 20% off or something.
Francis received so much criticism his first couple of years, people complained about the way he stood during the National Athem. Seriously.
That was great play in the first quarter last night - NOT! It's that kind of play that makes it hard to watch on TV, let alone forking over $100+ to go watch it dead, I mean "live"....
At least you're not mentioning Shawn Bradley, which is better than what a lot of people thought at first. I would have loved to have Rik during his time, but I want Yao to be much more than that. Did Smits constantly have coaches and fans hounding him and telling him he needed to beat the crap out of people? If he did, then your comparison is a little too scary.
Any Indiana fans around to answer this? I do know he came into the league with a lot less hype and fewer expectations. Thanks, btw, for not flaming me. People get mad when I bring up Rik, but he was a very good player. When I watch Yao (like last night even), I always think of Rik. If Yao can avoid injuries, then he can have a much better career.
If I am not completely mistaken, Yao is probably already a better shotblocker (and interior deterring presence - referring to the article SamFisher posted) than Rik Smits ever was.
