First of all let me say that I own season tickets in the Club Section. I attend 85% or more of the games and am usually the loudest in my section. The amenities in this section are nice; full bar, plasma televisions, and gourmet food. I would gladly give all of that up to have our fans back. The Club Level tickets are obviously bought up by coorporations whos employees do not wish to attend the games at the moment because the Rockets are doing so poor. Especially the East Club which is pretty much 60% empty at almost every game. Fortunately, you cant see the East Club while watching the games on television because the cameras are positioned right above it. What an embarassing sight that would be on national television! Given the current Home record, I believe that the Club Section is contributing to the loss column. I am frequently stared at for not sitting on my hands during games. I am always one of the first ones to show up, and last ones to leave. Basically we have put the most passive, silent, and fair weathered fans nearest to the action. In my opinion this makes the Toyota Center one of the easiest places to steal an "Away Game" for the opposing teams. We do not have a loud Arena like Sacramento or Utah that gives a clear Home team advantage. Now is the time for change. I believe that this situation will worsen if the Rockets continue to lose. The fair weather fan and the coorporations will not continue to purchase season tickets after the novelty of the Toyota Center and T-Mac has worn off, and the Rockets are no longer a "hot ticket". I could easily see this section only 15-20% full in that situation. The clear solution is to destroy the Club, get rid of any unecesarry expenses (no one goes to ball games for the gourmet food), remove the guards at the door, lower ticket prices, and let the true fans back in the game.
In the Compaq Center, it was easy to sneak down into the lower bowl seats (the ones that weren't used). You can't even get close to the lower bowl club level seats without a ticket in the Toyota Center. All of those empty seats, being wasted...
Amen! I only wish I could sit that close, use those spotless restrooms, eat gourmet food, sit at a bar or those tables and watch the game while I eat, have carpet on the floor when I walk or even have the chance to get a tshirt thrown to my section. That's a dream that is not going to come true, and unfortunately I don't think the dream of destroying the club section will either. It's a good thought and I respect you for sacrifing your "amenities" to help your team and the fans of your team, but unfortunately the "important" people don't see it that way. So I'll be staying in my $9 hole until the end of the year, and I don't know if I'll be back next year. Pugs
I agree 100%. They should have made the Club section be the 2nd tier of lux suites. Hell, it's not as if they're managing to get even close to selling out the suites. A change needs to be made.
The club section is one of the reasons i still have not attended a game this year. The empty seats are embarassing on the TV too.
Fantastic idea. Let's replace the mannequins with fans. Did you see how hyped McGrady got at the end of the Sixers game? He was reacting to the fans getting involved - imagine if we actually had more than a handful of them in the lower bowl/club section.
Thanks everyone for the support. I can see this happening though. Think about it. Are coorporations going to re-new their season tickets if no employees are actually wanting to use them? You cant give these high priced tickets away for FREE to these people!!! Also, I really believe the Rockets want a sucessful team and I cant think of the last sucessful team that didnt have a clear cut home court advantage. The best thing would be to let the true fans back in the game, and force the coorporations to be in the suites where they belong. You would "Sell Out" everygame. I think some people at the Rockets have to realize that this was a huge mistake and do something about it. I can actually really see this happening, but we will probably be the "New Clippers" before it does.
I have been thinking about this issue for a long time. Houston should be a great sports city, but it's not. Much of it has to do with price. Working-class people tend to be the best fans. Astros games get great attendence, even when we're bad. Why? Because you can see a game for $10. When the Oilers were here, we had really poor attendence. Why? Because going to a football game costs a lot of money, and we sucked. Our poor attendence cost us our team and we were doomed to silence for 7 years. I never thought that the Toyota Center attendence would be equal to the Summit, but it is. Why? Because interest in the NBA has steadily been falling, and ticket prices have been rising. It kills me to say this, but we have a lot of fair-weather fans in this city. It's never been a city with real team loyalty. We have had an interesting team to watch for 5 years now, and it seems like our attendence gets worse and worse every year. It's a vicious cycle because ticket prices rise if revenue is not coming in. On the other hand, we have to lower prices across the board to get fans to come back. Solution: Get rid of the club seats. This is percisely the problem. You are basically reserving space for people who could care less about watching the Rockets, and shutting out people who would actually pay attention, and make some noise. Fan energy is contagious, and right now, our team needs every bit of that energy. Quite frankly, it's embarrassing to see the audience at a Rockets game; We are among the top five worse home courts, and it's been this way for years now.
Right on. The lower bowl is specifically designed to keep people from moving down so high-dollar corporate types don't have to deal with lower-class snooks sitting next to them and (god forbid) cheering. The Rockets want that kind of snooty dinner party atmosphere down there, no matter what the impact on the team. If someone is rich enough to shell out $125 a seat for every game, the Rockets want to guarantee that, for that money, he won't have to deal with Joe Sixpack. When you think about it, it's no different than any snooty restaurant - Tony's wouldn't want people from the Burger King next door to be able to come in and eat whoppers on their fancy tablecloths. That's just common sense. But the problem here is that the Rockets do want Joe Public to come in, but they want to keep him in the back of the place where the view, food, service, and style are all less. You can come in, but you'll be treated as second-class and in no way will you be allowed near your betters sitting in first. In this way, it's insulting to those sitting in the upper deck. If I had known that the Toyota Center was to be designed this way, I would have never voted for it. Shame on the Rockets for getting us to pay for all of it, then shutting us out of half of it.
Yea, that's another thing. We paid for much of this stadium. I don't want my tax dollars going to build a stadium for corporate lackies. It should be an equal opportunity environment where working-class fans feel they can afford to watch the game. I knew there would be some club seats, but I had no idea they would take up that much of the stadium. Too much greed. I make a great living, but basketball games shouldn't be only for the wealthy.
I'd buy season tickets if the seats at top were 5 bucks a piece. think about it marketting team. Would you rather have my 205 bucks or 0 dollars?
without the club sections, this team would be playing in another stadium. i don't like it, but it's the reality of today's professional sports. houston and the toyota center aren't alone on this.
I wonder when we are going to have to start paying for a satellite service to hear games on the radio. I bet it's not too far off.
In case anyone is curious, we're currently 8th worst in average home attendance. What I'm wondering is do they get that number from the total tickets sold, or from the tickets scanned when people enter the building? Probably tickets sold, so even though our average is, dare I say it, this high, we most likely have less: Atlanta 13,707 New Jersey 13,863 Orlando 14,199 NO 14,328 LA Clippers 15,200 Seattle 15,282 Boston 15,310 HOUSTON 15,533 Link Pugs
