I agree with your point that the Blazers are the only game in town (well there's the Timbers if you like soccer), so the fan base is probably more rabid. However, to the author's point, Portland is nowhere close to as spread out as Houston, and it's really easy to get to games. I jump on the MAX, and it drops me at the front door in 10 minutes. There's also ample parking within a 20 minute walk.
One thing I'll add on the noise level. @The Cat mentions how good the crowd is, but he's live. When you are there live you don't feel like it's as bad as it comes across on tv so you think it's a good night. The reality is that the arena doesn't deal with sound well. It's so cavernous and spacious that the sound dissipates. When you are in the middle of it you feel like it's rocking, but it doesn't echo and build on tv. It creates a different experience for the in-person crowd and the tv watcher.
Dallas has the same exact infrastructure and sprawl as Houston and their crowd is better and they don't have as many empty seats to start the game. As someone else said, LA is even worse. Stop making excuses for Houston having a bottom tier crowd.
Have our arena in Katy and it'll be filled. Just make sure we don't have any home games on Friday nights during high school football season.
What many guys on this board don't realize is that pretty much all of those seats have been paid for. People just don't show up or sit in them during games. The two factors are many of the lower seats are own by corporations to give to clients and sometimes they go unused and the other is the people like the Lexus lounge a lot. These are actually good problems to have for the rockets because they are making money. The rockets are one of the most profitable franchises which is why Tillman had to pay over 2 billion dollars for it. Now if you want more people to sit in the sits, the rockets should create a marketplace where the corporations can sell back some of their game tickets if they know no one is going to use them.
Oh one thing I forgot to add to my first post earlier in the thread - I think the Rockets exclusively using FlashSeats as its exclusive secondary market makes it harder for sites like StubHub and other secondary market ticket websites to sell their tickets which may contribute to some things if a company wanted to sell its tickets it makes it a bit harder for them to do so.
Dallas has a rail system that drops you off right in front of the arena. LA crowds are notoriously late arriving.
We don’t need a book to explain why people don’t go to the games. Transportation and money is the biggest reason why ppl don’t go to games. You could even throw in predictability. Everyone knows GS is going to the finals and until that team breaks up no one is beating them. So either they blow everyone out or the NBA makes sure that GS makes it (Scott Foster). I don’t want to spend my hard earned money on something that’s rigged, nevertheless, spend my money to watch a bunch of dumbass officials take over games. So until transpiration, cheaper tickets, and better officials get solved I will never consistently go to a Rockets game. Until then I’m perfectly happy in my comfortable home on my lazy boy chair eating pizza and drinking XX all for a whopping $10-$15.
No you are 100% Correct. The Summit was more fan friendly to the common Houstonian not the common Corporate Executive. Everything about the Rockets was local. The concessions, the ads, Gallery Furniture etc. It was Houston pride. Les changed the colors, you know that. There was history behind the yellow and red. There was ONLY GREED behind what Les did. They changed it to a church, but we all know it was a HOLY SITE @Clutch
I don't view it as a problem, and I'm not embarrassed if someone isn't in their seat when the game starts. If there are some empty seats it doesn't make me enjoy the game any less. Harden still makes his money. Tilman still makes his money. The people who bought the seats can do as they wish. I see empty seats in other arenas. This isn't something seen only in Houston.
I don't necessarily know how to fix it, but the showing from an outsider out of town fan's perspective is kind of embarassing. Seeing unclaimed shirts, seats open, and lackluster filling to start 1st and 3rd quarters hurts. It's frustrating. People blame management, people blame the fanbase, I don't know who to blame.
I have absolutely no data to back up this claim....but it *FEELS* like the later start times are better. Less of an excuse for dining and traffic and such. I don't live in Houston anymore so I can only go by what I see on TV. I know the media (@The Cat) hates later start lines but I love them.
Cost is the big one, I think. You want the lower bowl filled, but, man, your average fan simply can't do that on a regular basis. And corporate season tickets down there will regularly have seats go unfilled. The upper bowl has a great view, and I got some front row seats there for like $60 a piece or something for the last Nuggets game, but I didn't even look in the lower bowl. Houston fans really are too easy going. It's a conundrum. I want excited fans but not rabid ******* fans. I do think there's a degree of success tied to your rabid fanbase, though. I mean, look at Green Bay and Pittsburgh in the NFL. These are not major cities, but they're consistently good. I don't think the fans there would stand for long stretches average-to-mediocre play. Also, you gotta think that sports is a lot more important in a place that has a lot less to focus on. Also, Houston always has a strong economy, so you figure that a lot of people probably are working a lot and can't hit every Rockets game at 7:00 on a weeknight. The city is just too damn functional for sports to take up a big chunk of people's focus. That's my hypothesis with the fans. And, yeah, we're just nicer down here. Maybe too nice. In terms of driving, I just assume everything takes at least 30 minutes each way. I was actually pleasantly surprised by the ease of parking for that Nuggets game. I would take driving thirty relatively stressless minutes to go to and from Toyota Center to the hour of subway mechanics of getting one's self to and from Yankee Stadium for example.
A 7:30 PM start time would make the biggest difference. It's not too early like at 7 and it's not going to end that much later like a game starting at 8.
One of these days I will be a billionaire. I will buy the Rockets and have two goals: Win championships Become known as having the craziest home crowd I think the biggest challenge to #2 is as you said in your first point: transportation. The second biggest challenge is cost, but if I own the team I can control the cost directly. What I would do is remodel TC and have the middle deck built out to be the "fancy" corporate area. There's a decent start with the Lexus lounge. Bars, good food, nice seats, etc. I would sell corporate tickets there. I would make the lower bowl commercially available and I would gouge the ticket prices. The price that you have to pay now for upper deck would be charged to the lower bowl. Upper deck prices would drop too, by design. The whole atmosphere of TC would need to change a bit. Better lighting, music, attractions. RIght now it's way too corporate-focused so I would do everything I could to make it about fan experience. I hate the mavs but nobody can deny that Cuban is a passionate owner that understands this. I'd spend a ton of money on pregame promotions and activities to entice fans to get to the arena earlier. Happy hours mostly, because Houstonians are laid back, so I'd give them alcohol discounts for showing up early. Same for food prices before the game. I'd do in-game promotions too. Something like if Rockets hit 10 3's beer is $2 cheaper the rest of the night. Or if a Rocket earns a triple double, there's some sort of promotion for the next home game. Houston would do well with a subway system to help with transport, but I don't see that happening ever (if only Houston could be like Boston or Chicago in that way...) I'm sure I would lose a ton of money, especially to corporate. Maybe I'd lose partnerships, but that's not why I'm buying the team (of course, winning is the #1 priority. If we win, many of those corporations and partners would come crawling back.). If I'm a billionaire with enough money to purchase a team, the ONLY reason I would purchase the team is because I love the city and the franchise. I wouldn't purchase the team to earn more money. I'm already richer than any one man should be. The franchise would be a passion project that I'd EXPECT to lose money on. I'd probably tank the financial value of the franchise but I truly believe there is a floor to how low that could go. Any NBA franchise will always have some decent value.
I really don't understand why the Rockets have so much difficulty with this. The Astros have an awesome playoff atmosphere, and even a moderate amount of excitement has Texans games lit. Yet the Rockets still have this largely apathetic crowd, Better than the regular season yes, but compared to the other playoff teams it's a clear notch below.
