I'll pay good money for one or two of those tickets if you're getting them for free. I sat on the second row floor behind Les Alexander once last year and it was amazing.
Well, that's the area they have spent most of the money on entertainment/restaraunt places.... In particular check out http://www,marketsquarehouston.com for an example of nice places to visit before or after the gane. Or Flying Saucer at Capital and Main. Pete's dancing Marlin at Congress and Main. La Carafe (cash only) at Congress and Travis, etc. etc. If you are buying I'll show you around!
This week three of my buddies and I were looking at driving down from College Station to see the Rockets and Spurs play. We wanted to get decent seats but not spend a fortune.....Too bad! That is not possible in today's NBA. The cheapest seats we could get were $30 a pop, and I've had friends from H-town who have said they suck, and are probably not worth $10 per seat. (Are upper deck seats that bad?) The problem is that the NBA is marketed towards corporate types who will buy blocks of expensive seats. This means: a) they don't show up half the time b) when they do show up they are still terrible fans c) everyone else gets priced out The NBA, in my opinion, is going to hurt itself long-term if it continues down this road. While they are making money short-term, they are losing fanbase and "atmosphere" that makes games fun. Yes, Houston is a bandwagon town, but this is happening everywhere around the league. One of the most brilliant moves was when the Chicago Cubs when they decided to broadcast home and away games on WGN. While televising home games hurt attendence short term, they built up a huge fan base over the years. Due to long term thinking and strategy, the Cubs were able to build up a HUGE fan base. Unfortunatelly it appears the NBA is only concerned about making money off corporate types, so expect to continue to see empty seats.
I'm not going to go back right now and find the quote (it as in the Detroit game thread -- too many flames on other topics to wade back through that one), but on attendance I remember talking about how Detroit was a sellout, how Portland had plenty of seats left, and how San Antonio was tracking towards a sellout. We knew Portland would be low -- mid-week, early season, and not a team that draws well. We'd obviously like the building to be more full mid-week, but we did see this one coming. But the point was that after San Antonio, we'll have sold out 5 of our first 10 games. Compare that to 2001-02 or 2000-01, when we sold out 3 games total for each of those seasons, or even last year, when we made a lot of progress and sold out 10 of our 41 home games. Our goal is to get every game sold out. We want to make strong and steady progress towards that goal. We're doing that. For anyone keeping track on upcoming games, we only have about 300 tickets left for San Antonio, just about all of them in the $55 and up range. We'll probably finish selling that out today, outside of a few singletons that are always hard to move. And for the College Station fan upstream who complained about not being able to get tickets under $30 for San Antonio: We love having you here, just be ready that as we start selling out more and more games, if you want to get the ticket price you want, you're going to have to buy earlier and earlier. We have about 3500 seats at $20 or under (we have $10, $14, and $20 sections), which is more than most other teams in comparable markets. Those price points are very popular and always sell out first. Tim
attendance figuress are just people who showed up ESPN has no idea how many tickets actually sold...they just report the number of people that arrive at the game.
i sat in row H in section 114 at the Detroit game all i have to say is that i think its so sad that the people in the stadium make more noise for the free shirts instead of the Rockets themselves
Houston is the fattest city in America, and also the most air-conditioned city in America. I don't think Houston fans suck.... they just prefer to sit in their air-conditioned living rooms, eat, and watch the games on TV. I think the existence and sucess of this BBS proves that Houston fans don't suck.
Not many teams are 50% on the road. If you check the standing, there is currently only one Western team at or above .500.
how do you figure? I count 4 teams in the west with .500 road records or better Minnesota 8-4 Lakers 6-3 Memphis 6-5 Seattle 4-4 In the East there are 5 teams Anyway, all I'm saying is if we win half our road games we'll be a lock to make the playoffs. We'll still probably make it even if we don't.
Ah, sorry. I thought you had talked about a near sellout for the Portland game. I hadn't gone back to find your original quote. My bad.
Have no fear. A winning team/playoff will ultimately fill the arena. Fans are cynical having seen a steady diet of some pretty ugly/dumb basketball for last 4 years - and Rox are still sometimes painfully difficult to watch. Somehow they continue to make the game harder than it needs to be. JVG is finding that old habits die hard, but I LOVE THE DIRECTION WE ARE GOING! Patience grasshopper..............when mind and body are in synch things will be better. D R
Good observation Farhan. We need an announcer that sounds like he's at least having fun. This new announcer blows!!!! And Tim, seriously, it really really sucks sitting in the nosebleed seats and just watching gifts and t-shirts being showered on all the seats below you. It makes you feel like a second-class vile smelling leper. Compaq Center we had Turbo shooting t-shirts to us with that air bazooka thing, do something! It sucks not being able to get anything.
Tim, i think the fans would really appreciate "cheap" days during mid week games,,,,i dont know how other teams do them but i think they would draw alot of ppl on games like portland
Come on, Tim. Free seats for all games Mon-Thu... please? I mean, hey... paying for the privilege of being there live in a brand new modern facility is a ridiculous notion.
