The Rockets' brass have never known how to appeal to the city of Houston...and they never will because I can assume that a great majority of those who work for the team arent even Rockets fans...they're just there cuz they have nice degrees and are suitable for the position...The fact is that the diehard fans will always be in the upper deck and not courtside or in the good seats...I mean, we're the 4th largest city in the nation and we struggle to sellout games that feature Tracy McGrady and Yao Ming...it all starts at the top...the Rockets ticketing, marketing brass dont recruit the diehard fans who are passionate and loyal about the squad...they're "gold-diggers" so they get the business types who could care less about basketball and just want to be seen courtside at a sporting event...its all BS...
the Denver crowd is very noisy...im watchin' the game on ESPN right now, and they're rich n' white...i think.
More like Lousy Houston Rockets Owner. Don't blame the fans because they are in the upper level or at home watching the game. The lower level is filled with corporate execs that got tickets for being a good client. Don't blame the fans.
For a while there I thought you were describing one of the Longhorn Basketball home games. How ironic that there's the same reaction.
aside from it being annoying (we have two of the league's biggest stars), a loud stadium could also give us an added advantage. Much the way Arco Arena has helped the Kings ove the years.
Designate each stand-by pass with a row in a section. Have a camera scan of the low level during the game and during the break after 1st quarter, put it on the big board who should come down. Of course, if the real seat owner comes later, security just send the stand-by pass holder back to upper level. No pandemonium. You can probably sell 500 passes for $300 each on average. It may not be a lot of money, but you get better home court advantage which is priceless.
<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v55/pastorofmuppets/Rockets/FD004381wc.jpg" title="Cheese for your Whine">
Actually, at the Houston Ballet, you can move down after the first act. I often do, there's usually good seats right up front. They don't have pandemonium. There's a rule that you have to be in your seat when the performance starts. Theatre and opera are similar. In fact, at the opera, you can't return to the auditorium until the next intermission if you leave your seat during the performance. They want to keep the place dark and not have people jostling around pushing past on bathroom run or snack break. People deal with it. It's just a different code, and a different fan base, too, but people adapt. Some theatres re-release unused seat tickets at a cheap discount after usher's report at intermission on big "Sell-out" shows. If Toyota center had a use-it or lose-it rule set to halftime, that seems perfectly reasonable. In fact, as more people got used to crowding down at halftime, the natural tendancy would be for ticket sales to increase, as more and more people wanted to stake their claim to exclusive right to a commodity with a sudden increase in scarcity. Also tickets for the upper deck would increase, as word spread that one might be able to get a lower bowl pass at halftime. That gambling factor of an uncertain payoff is highly addictive, and would bring people back again and again. You might read Robert Cialdini's book Influence for more on human emotional response to scarcity. It's predictable. Upshot - more sales, louder crowd.
WOW.. why is it people ALWAYS find something to b**** about.. STFU, I'm tired of hearing.. "OUR CROUDS SUCK!" "ROCKETS FANS SUCK!" and I get really mad when someone from the roof comes down and sit in front of me after the start of the second half.. the whole row in front of me is most of the time empty, because THEY ARE SOLD to a company as SEASON TICKETS and most of the time people don’t show.. The idea of moving down wont change anything, if the power dancers and Clutch cant make the Toy box louder you think you and "THE LOUD ONES" will just by moving down? Get over it, most Houston fans don’t show up or follow a team until it starts winning and then they'll come out to the games.. I'm a DIEHARD rox fan with good seats and it would be great to have some more cheering going on down close to the court, so BUY a better ticket and bring your cheering ass on down.. To me you come off as bitter because you see so many good seats open and you cant move down so now you’ll b**** and say how much better of a fan you are.. GET OVER IT!! You need to feel grateful we still have a great team and one of the nicest new arenas to cheer in rather than calling us "LOUSY" I'll get off the soapbox now, but I'm tired of being grouped as a "LOSY" fan many times a year..
I commend you for being a Rockets fans and for spending your hard earned money on Rockets entertainment. There is no reason for people who do not even attend the game to call anybody lousy and put all fans in the same boat. However as a whole, Toyota Center is the most uninspiring, quitest, most boring and lethargic sports venue in the United States of America. Can't put all the blame on the arena setup (expensive lower seats), because all arenas in the NBA have the same arrangement, in fact lower bowl seats for Lakers, Knicks, Chicago, Denver etc. are more expensive. I am not worried about the image that the arena has. I am worried that it will cost us a lot of games like it did last year. San Antonio and Sacramento have been practically unbeatable in recent years in their home courts and it is not just their talent and style, it's their inspiring fan support. As optimistic as I am about the Rockets, they have to be clearly superior to all teams in the NBA to win the championship. With our lack of home court advantage, they are going to have to win 30 road games to win the conference and that's extremely difficult if not virtually impossible.
You know, if you want cheering fans in seats in the lower bowl club, the way to get there is to scatter pairs of seats there that are only available as single game tickets, maybe sell them on game day, at TC, and make it so you have to enter the arena after buying the tickets to cut the scalpers out. This gets you a line of crazy fans at every home game who raise hell in the lower bowl. If they're out anything, its the time value of money on the tix, which should more than get made up for by the service fees, etc. ppl pay. My $0.02, anyway. My solution was to buy a mini-plan in the lower bowl on the ends.
If someone shells out THOUSANDS of dollars for season tickets, and decides to NOT go to a few dates, so what? It is their money, their choice. Most people would give those tickets away to friends but sometimes that is not possible. I have season tickets in Austin to the Round Rock Express, and the Austin Toros...... Trust me, I don't go to half the games.....and give away a bunch of tickets but about 20-25% of the time, they go unused. People paid the money it is their choice. Maybe the team could have a program where season ticket holders can sell their unused tickets........that might help. DD
I disagree. Lots of HARDCORE Rocket fans (like me) can only afford to go a few games a year. LOL, this sentence seems to contradict your first sentence.
I was at the game last night to and the Rockets did a lot to get that crowd into it, with all the activities they had going before the game outside. They had a red carpet set up for when you enter a lot of the employees are giving you high fives screaming, waving towels. It was great, then the pre game introduction of the players and all the lower seats are about half full. Even five minutes after the game starts, people are finally getting to their seats. I think it's bull that the Rockets have done everything we wanted them to as far as getting better players, and the fans in Houston can't seem to support them when their there. I was in the upper seats and the fans up there were crazy loud at times. It's really a shame to go to a good game and watch a team like ours that is so good and everybody just sits there.
I'm in that boat too. I've scaped money together to goto games every year and this is the first year I could afford a mini-plan. I thought the crowd was actually pretty good last night. Many showed up late and left early- but they always have (At least for the last 10 years I've been going to games anyway). There were alot of High School groups there last night and that made the upper bowl alot of fun. My biggest complaint was the microphone they turn on on the rim for dunks and free throws. Do we really need to hear the sound of our opponents dunking on us? Keep that stuff for the home team only please. I can't wait for next Tuesday!
Actually, that is the most practical solution, but it has only worked in a couple of places successfully. The programs that have been tried don't always work, but I have always thought this would be worth a shot. I have friends who sit in the expensive seats and scream their asses off. I've sat down there before and screamed my ass off. So, it isn't as if all of them sit silent. And if you think the Rockets don't know or care, you just don't know the situation. They do know and they definitely care. So far, there just hasn't been a good solution.
