Please explain to a non-Houston resident, why is the attendance so low?

When we were winning, attendance was the best. However, Houston is the only place I have seen where no matter what sport it is, if the team is not winning, the city basically abandons them, but when the team is winning, we have the greatest fans in the world. The new arena should help this but unless we start winning, the fans wont be coming any time soon. Also if the ticket prices were lowered many more would come. I think Houston has the highest ticket prices which make it extreemly hard for many people to get out to games on a regular basis.

 

Houston is not the only "bandwaggoning" city, but it is among the worst. (Being a native Houstonian, I can say that!). As to "why," there are a bunch of reasons:

(1) It's the economy. Compaq. Enron. 'nuff said.

(2) The Rockets have been mired in losing. People have been jumping off the bandwagon, and "low attendance" begets "poor crowds" begets lower attendance in a vicious cycle. To answer your question, attendance picked up during/after the second championship run, and lasted until 3 or so years ago.

(3) The Astros new stadium and the coming of the Texans caused a bunch of corporations to switch their season tickets away from basketball.

(4) The same malaise seen throughout the NBA. Made worse by the ticket prices here being among the highest in the league.

 

Talk abut it everywhere. Did you see the Gund Arena tonight? There couldn't have been more than 8 or 9 thousand. New Jersey is leading the eastern conference but has the worst attendance in the league.

Houston has its attendance problems but it is somewhat of a trend all over the league.

 

America is at WAR!....like the news keeps reminding us, and ...well, I think people just want to save money.

 

Sorry for my Thread for being "misleading". Anyways, the two games I went, the attendence has been pathetic. What I dont understand is how a city like Sacramento has been selling out way before Weber came to town. I guess Houston is a bandwagon city. Astros arent doing so great in attendence either. They had a total of I believe around 6 sellouts to being the season when Enron first opened. People were expecting it to be selling out by the time the building opened. I believe once the new stadium opens, it will open up people's wallets to go see them or they will jumping the bandwagon when they are winning.

 

war.. economy.. enron field... it doenst matter.... number of attendance was still pathetic before september 11.

i say rockets wins... ppl will naturally come to see them..

 

The Kings have always had great crowds because...drum roll please...what else are you gonna do in Sacramento? A Sacramento resident posted that very sentiment here once. A small city with an NBA franchise. Loyalty.

Same with the Jazz. Beautiful city setting. SMALL city, though (compared to Houston, what isn't?) What did Robert Horry say years ago? "The city of Utah [sic] is boring." So the NBA game is a bigger deal there. It doesn't hurt to have a winning team, either.

The games ARE expensive. Maybe suburbanites don't want to jack with traffic when they can watch a team lose on TV instead? I go to about two Rox games a year, when I'm in town. Too much $$$. The people who want to see these games often can't afford to go.

[Parenthetically, it's sad to walk into Oshman's and see wall-to-wall Texans gear; but I have to look to find Rockets stuff. One year away from a football team that's gonna suck for a good long while and they're already marketing the heck out of it. Meanwhile, marketing for the Rockets? Hello? Is anyone....out there?]

There are also a lot of people in Houston who have moved from elsewhere. Houston is where they come to make their money; but, even if they stay here forever, many cling to their old allegiances, they view home as elsewhere ("We're from Chicago, we've been in Houston for three years") and so might jump on the Rox bandwagon if/when they start winning.

 

To play a little Devil's Advocate:

With all the entertainment options here in Houston, why should a fan drop $40 to $50 per person to see a struggling team play ugly basketball? I mean, the Rocks aren't the greatest example of basketball's beauty and function.

You can just stay home and watch them from the couch!

I'm usually one of the first to knock Houston sports fans, but this is a case of simple economics, consumers want comparable return from their investment. During parts of the Dream era, the Rocks fielded some pretty mediocre teams, but at least they were enjoyable to watch (and they won more than they lost) hence the sellouts and strong fan interest.

There just isn't much motivation to seeing the Rocks right now.

 

1. FAIR WEATHERED FANS.
2.The prices are expensive, because they don't have the seating compacity to have cheap seats. And The ECONOMY SUCKS.
3. You can watch every game on TV one way or another.
4.Even we were winning, it was more just a place to take a client. Business sucks right now.
5. THE GOOD OLE BOY NETWORK is still in effect. And they don't like dem' boys making all that money. I gather this conclusion from the arena fiasco. Astros and Texans sure got what they wanted fast didn't they? And anyway the sport is JUST SO FAST FOR THEM TO UNDERSTAND, like HOCKEY FAST.
I lived in Houston almost all my life, there is nothing fun to do there that is free. There is hardly any nature and what their is its contaminated. The city and the people are still slow to move with the times. People are very distant from one another. The city is so spread out people just tend to stay in their neck of the woods. I love H-TOWN but like every other city it has it's faults.When the Rockets aren't winning, they take a backseat to everything else because the FAITH is gone. Thank God there are people like us!

 

We don't have the star power that we used to. "Steve Francis" just doesn't light up a marquee like "OLAJUWON," "DREXLER," "BARKLEY," and "PIPPEN" did... <I>yet.</I>

Once Mobley, Francis, and Griffin become bigger names, more people will come to see them.