http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news/ap/20020918/ap-worldchampionship-finances.html Indiana Sports Corp. loses $2.69 million on World Championships INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- The World Basketball Championships were costly off the court, too. Two weeks after the United States' embarrassing sixth-place finish, the nonprofit corporation that organizes the city's major amateur sports events reported an expected loss of $2.69 million. ``We experienced a financial shortfall on the event, but we are optimistic about identifying ways to eliminate the deficit and we continue to be very upbeat about future events,'' Indiana Sports Corp. president Dale Neuburger said Wednesday. With USA Basketball president Tom Jernstedt acknowledging during the tournament that tickets were grossly overpriced, the event averaged just 6,414 fans for 31 sessions at Conseco Fieldhouse and the RCA Dome. Ticket prices ranged from $10 to $58 for the first round, from $12 to $66 for the second round, from $24 to $110 for the quarterfinals, $65 to $135 for the semifinals and $95 to $190 for the gold medal game. Tickets for the title game were later discounted. The United States, missing many top stars, won its first five games to improve to 58-0 when using NBA players in international competitions, then lost three of its final four games to Argentina, Yugoslavia and Spain. The sixth-place finish is the worst ever by a U.S. men's team in a major international competition. ``I think even going into the quarterfinals we were still optimistic,'' ISC vice president Bill Benner said. ``We didn't anticipate the United States not being in medal-round play. ``Nobody likes to lose money on an event. I'm going to continue to emphasize that, in every other way, we think we had a tremendous event that went a long way toward positioning Indianapolis as an international city and a major sports city.''
Overpriced tickets or not, the crowds in Indy were absolutely embarassing. They call themsleves a basketball hotbed, but they wouldn't even come out to see essentailly an international All-Star game with some of the best players in the world and 2 of their very own. They should ban Indy from hosting any large sports events until they figure out a way to get people to come out and show some support. Seriously, Argentina and Yugoslavia essentially had home-court advantage in their games against the US on its own soil.
