Will the Toyota Center CONSISTENTLY SELLOUT NOW with Dwight Howard in Town???

wat? .

 

the problem isn't selling out, it's people not showing up.

 

I live in Australia and I could of even told u that the lower bowl looked empty as hell compared to other teams

 

Rocket fans have nvr been that good at showing up. For a team with as good of a tradition this should not be the case

 

Hopefully the tc will be packed on nationally televised games.

 

Houston is the fourth largest city in the country! With more Fortune 500 compaies headquarters in the city in America outside of NYC and its the fastest growing large city. No excuse for not being top 5 attendance.

 

We wont ever be top 5 in attendance because Toyota Center doesnt hold enough people.

 

Please tell us more about our awesome tradition. How many times have we made it out of the first round in the last 15 years?

 

This x100000.

The NBA is a sport that lets more teams into the playoffs than it excludes. The regular season is a preseason. We had some regular season success in the Yao era...but this team hasn't had real playoff sucess since 1997. Now contrast that to the Mavs and Spurs whose attendance numbers are getting thrown around in this thread. In the early to mid 90's, you could get Mavs tickets by buying tacos at Taco Bueno. Seats were available throughout the building. They were a hot ticket after contending for and ultimately winning a title. But I promise you, there will be tons of empty seats if Cuban keeps coming up empty in free agency and fails to generate buzz for his franchise.

As much as I love the Rockets.. they've won exactly one playoff series in 15 seasons. That's terrible. There are just a handful of teams that were that bad in the postseason over that same period of time. Very difficult to generate season ticket buzz over that kind of track record.

I have no doubt the buzz of this offseason is already moving season tickets more significantly than any "success" we've had since this team was a real championship contender.

 

Sure we aren't a legendary franchise like the celtics or lakers. With that said we do have 2 NBA championships in albeit 20 years ago...and more often than not we have had teams going into the season that were considered championship contenders(Yao, T-mac era) (Olajuwon, Barkley) and now Dwight and Harden.

Have we had the success in the playoffs we would have liked? Absolutely not, but that doesn't change the fact that compared to the rest of the league the rockets organization have put an above average product on the court with many superstars over the years.

 

Yes, especially if we are winning.

 

Tell Warrior fans and Clipper fans and Blazer fans and Jazz fans that you have to win in the playoffs to generate buzz. Heck, the Magic had better attendance (total and % of available seats) than the Rockets.

On top of just raw attendance numbers, the Rocket fans are some of the least passionate and intense in the game in terms of energy level. You are right though, that changes when they a winning a big game.

 

Dont forget the Moses Malone and Calvin Murphy days or Olajuwon and Sampson.

 

LOL Htown fans are funny like that, If we are winning, attendance is great and if we are losing then LOL jokers dont show up period.

 

I'm not sure when the narrative started on Warrior fans. Most of their existence that I can recall, no one there gave a damn about the Warriors. It appears that started to change around 2006...I have no idea why.

Blazer, Magic and Jazz fans are the only game in town. Wanna buy season tickets for your business? Great, you have one option. Whether they suck or they're great, they're the only show in town.

I haven't been to enough arenas to comment on the energy level. But ultimately I think there's way too much made of fans independent of the product on the court. There is a notion that somehow fans owe pro sports teams something on top of ticket prices and $8 hot dogs. And most of this "analysis" is carried out with little context of ticket prices, team performance, arena/stadium size, etc.

 

And which markets do you think are immune from that? More particularly, which markets that aren't NBA-only markets are immune from that?

Tell me about attendance in most NBA cities when their franchise has won one playoff series in 15 seasons.

Phoenix, for example, used to be a guaranteed sellout. They were known for passionate fans. How's that working out now?

 

I dont care about any other teams. We are talking about our Rockets fan-base. And its sad to me that jokers dont want to support their home team when they are down. But hey that's just me.

 

I understand that sentiment..my point is only that it's not something unique to Houston at all.

 

Hey MadMax you are right on the money as well. A lot of franchises go through this as well.

 

Proud band-wagoner chiming in. It makes no sense to me to watch a team that is bad --not a very entertaining way to spend your limited time. In a city with some of the finest restaurants in the country, you make the case that I should go see a team lose/not be very entertaining over trying out a restaurant I've never been to.

I don't even understand why "bandwagoner" is implied negatively, makes no sense to me. Are we in a gang or something? Are you supposed to be "down for whatever" or however you kids say it. Are you a "better" fan because you follow through thick and thin, and I buy tickets only during the thick? I doubt it. I just have better use of my recreation time.

Who cares if people buy tickets but don't show up or show up late, at least they bought tickets. Houston is a huge city. How does people not showing up affect you? I reckon that it doesn't.

Those fans that buy all the tickets but don't show up are surely worth more to the Rockets than all the fans that don't buy and complain on message boards.