lets face it, our fans suck

exactly. but everyone wants a mcbiggie sized house in suburbia that they can rush home to...driving home frantically for an hour through traffic in their land barge excursions so they can get home and watch Survivor as a family.

 

100% true.

 

this seems odd, but whenever i buy tickets for a rox game it seems like the more expensive seats are sold out more. Like when you go online the day before a game, it says less that 8 seats available for that section... And almost all of them are the expensive ones!!! The cheap $10-30 are still there!!!!!!!! SO stop b****ing about the money problem, since it seems like the cheap tickets are the ones having problems to sell!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

bad products?? We are 5 games above .500!!! The calavaliers sell more seats!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

what other arenas have you been to to draw the conclusion that the food is more expensive in tc...

 

exactly...
but im dumfounded??? How do all those texan fans make it??? DO they ride toro or something to the stadium??

 

but in a texans game they forget they are a houstonian???

 

I agree with jiggyness. I'll be at the game at the edge of my seat waiting for something exciting to cheer about (which admittedly can take awhile sometimes). Then, I hear a burst of crowd noise froma corner of the arena, and I think "Oh yea, here we go with the wave (I still love the wave; so I'm a dork)!" Then I look over to the area of excitement and figure out there there are 2 buffed up guys standing in a section of 200 people with 2 freakin' towels to give away, and the fans are going wild. When the freebies are gone, they sit back down and mumble quietly to themselves about how they got jipped.
That's what's disappointing. It's one thing for fans to stay away due to overpriced tickets, difficult access to the arena, or expensive food as mentioned above. It's another thing for the fans actually at the game to be so damn docile and fail to generate any kind of buzz unless they think they can get a free Rockets washcloth.
I hate when people say the game is about entertainment. Maybe it is now with the mega-marketing machine that is the NBA, but it shouldn't be. Going to a game is about experiencing the passion and excitement of a competitive battle between what should be the best athletes in the world. Since we're not good enough to play (damn!), our only chance to be involved is to support our team and give the other team hell. It's true that the Rockets are often unwatchable, but it's obvious that these guys are looking to feed off the crowd's energy and rarely get a chance to at home. Instead, they seem to reserve their best performances for the big-time games on the road in raucous atmospheres (i.e Lakers on X-Mas, Knicks game). I have a feeling they would play better at home if our fans would get behind them more.
It's undeniable that the Rockets fans as a whole at the games these days do suck. But, I've been following this team since the early 80s, and I've seen how "fanatic" the fans of H-town can get when they get behind their team. They do it for the Texans, and I bet ya they'll be pretty damn loud for the Stros when Andy (and Roger) pitch. Now, it's time for the Rockets fans to step up and feel like they're a part of something (dare I say BIG)! If we're gonna bi*&h about spending all that money, we might as well make some noise at the game and feel like you got something out of it. I MISS CLUTCH CITY!!!

 

espn fan attendence ranking has them at 23..pathetic!!!!!!! I counted 11 or more teams that have a worse record. Yes, even the exiting orlando magics and phoinix suns have a better attendence average...

 

i would drive almost any amount of time if i could afford the stupid ticket prices. they should give good seats to people who yell the most, not the richest ones.

 

Do I need to go to another one to find that out? You can go to an expensive movie theater and find cheaper prices, and thats saying a lot. And its not so much the prices as the quality...I've had a few nachos in my day, so I guess I have some credibility.

 

I am what you call around here, a Yao's fan. I am from out of town and now out of country. I have no way to attend many rocket's games.
However, when I went to Houston, I went to the game twice.
It is sad that Houston's fans do not support their team.
Two times that I went to the game, the arena was empty. The fans also not cheering like I expected.

Worse of all, the first time I were in houston, I ask for the direction to the Toyota center from the hotel staff.
She has no idea where it is and no idea what the rocket is.

 

Houston fans aren't bad, there just is a combination of forces at work.

1. Ticket prices: For an average seat at a Rockets game, you are looking at spending 40 dollars a ticket or more (I haven't been to the new building so I can't compare). For families, that is highly expensive to go more than two or three times a year. Now, I know someone will say well there are 10 dollar seats in the rafters. Guess what, I could get a better view and just as much excitement at home, and if the team sucks, I flip the channel between the game and something else, and save money. The reason you don't hear cheering is because the NBA has priced it's real fans out of coming. Corporate big shots usually don't care about cheering, they are there to entertain clients.

2. The quality of play in the NBA. Ever since the influx of high school basketball players to the NBA in the mid 90's, the quality of play has gone drastically down. It's not uncommon to see a team struggle to score 80 points a night in the NBA anymore. Case in point: the Rockets dominated the Jazz recently, scoring all of 84 points. Then you have games like the Indiana game, where both teams struggled to reach the 30's by halftime, or the San Antonio debacle. The list goes on. This is not enjoyable basketball. I can respect defense, but in most of these games, the players were just missing wide open jump shots. I can think of about 7 or 8 cities I'd like to go to a game purely based on the style of play, not whether the team wins or loses.

Seattle, Sacramento, Dallas, Denver, Memphis are the top 5 then outside choices are New Jersey, Minnesota, LA and Utah.

My favorite team to watch is the Kings because that offense is a thing of beauty, and that is what I want to see. Tonight Seattle and Memphis combined for 238 points as Seattle won 122-116. That is a game where fans got there money worth, not some 75-69 Toronto-Cleveland affair.

3. Jeff Van Gundy as Houston's head coach. He isn't a bad coach, in fact he is much the opposite. However, he preaches a quite boring style of basketball, and it is evident most nights when the Rockets take the floor. Fans don't spend 40 bucks a pop to watch two professional teams play a 70-69 game, just as in football or baseball if teams lost the fundamentals of the game. Shooting and passing are the most basic fundamentals of basketball, and nowadays it's a lost art in the NBA. If the Astros made errors all the time, couldn't throw strikes or ever score any runs, I wouldn't show up either. It's a waste of money and time.

4. The media pertaining to the NBA. The NBA didn't help it's cause by eliminating the NBA on NBC for ESPN, ABC and TNT. The broadcasts aren't nearly as good, and most of these games are on cable, which not every family can afford, or owns. Then to make matters worse, ESPN completely embarrassed themselves and the league by making Sal Masekela from the X games the sideline reporter for many games last year.

5. The rockets haven't made the playoffs in 4 years, and let the best player the team has ever had finish his career a Toronto Raptor. I'm not saying Hakeem leaving was a bad on the court move, but it certainly hurt off the court. A lot of fans supported the Rockets because of Dream, and because Hakeem also went to college at the University of Houston, he was revered in the city. It was a unique situation, and for a lot of fans, that hurt big time.

In conclusion, I don't think Rockets fans suck, I just think when you factor in ticket prices, the quality of play, not making the playoffs for 4 years, letting Hakeem retire in Toronto, along with more and more games being televised on cable rather than locally, you have a recipe for disaster. Once Houston makes the playoffs and starts winning big again, and has a dominant superstar night in and night out, which Yao should become, fans will come back I believe.

But today I'm going to Austin with my family to watch two entertaining basketball games for about the cost of one decent ticket at a Rockets game: the Texas women playing Oklahoma at 1 pm, and then the men playing Baylor at 7:30.

 

This is the exact point I was trying to make earlier in this thread. The Rockets' ticket buying public does not live inside the loop and it is a major trip to go home from work, pick up the fam, and turn around and make the marathon drive back downtown. Someone mentioned that the Toyota Center and Minute Maid Park are the best things that ever happened to Houston. I would say they're the best things that have happened in a long time to the downtown area of Houston and to that part of the city's economy, but when it comes to putting butts in the seats, I'm not sure downtown Houston is the best place to put the building.

 

I don't think I have to tell any of the Houstonians on this board that Houston public transportation is bottom of the barrel.

 

The Texans are still something new and exciting to the city of Houston. Give them a few years and the stadium will begin to empty out just like the Astrodome did for the Oilers. Also, there is a very big difference between attending a weekend and a weekday sporting event in a city with the land mass and population of Houston.

 

I heard that the parking cost $15? I remember Compaq center had free parking. Does anyone know about the parking fee?

 

I am saving all my money to see the Astros, the Rockets, Pettite, Oswalt, Miller, Bagwell, Kent, Biggio, Berkman,....

Tell me one sport team in Houston that will have such a lineup of players, besides the food is much better in Minute Maid and I actually got 4 tickets to the astros games consistantly for less than $15 last season (All 4 ticks that is !!)

But I have already been to 5 home games this year, so I have done my part, y'all do the rest. We should have a rotation!

 

I didnt know that it was a problem for most people. I never seen anyone starve or dehydrate in 3 hours while watching a game. Its not that bad ... try it and you will see.

I ve been to about 8 games so far this season and my friends and I always eat/drink else where before coming to the game and once we're at the Toyota Center we dont even think about buying food/drinks and nobody dies of starvation/thirst

Also driving to Downtown is not as bad as everyone says it is (well maybe it depends where you are coming from). I drive from Pearland, TX. It takes me about 15 min going down 288 to downtown...