Lack of interest in the Rockets

that Darrel Morrey sounds like he knows what he's talking about on the radio....

to add more to what i said on the first page

it comes down to our dedicated fan base isn't as big as the Texans/Astros

I know die hard Astros and Texans fans that will stick by them no matter what their records are, and most of them are on this board also.

When someone downs the Rockets and I ask "who's your team?", a few coworkers are Sixers and Knicks fans, I respect that, admitting they are still fans even though they are in a down year, not too many Rockets fans are like that, and thats reality.

Even though we didn't win a championship the 08-09 season, it was still special to all the fans I knew during the 22 game winning streak because of what we went through, injury depleted seasons, the Francis years where we still thought we can win Championship even when we didn't even sniff the playoffs.

 

Not in the playoffs and the roster has been depleted. I for one always watch until the bitter end this season and get ready for the following draft lottery, the draft, July 1st and July 4th FA can be signed, and October when the Rockets will once again be down here in the RGV.

 

So why still people see and buy merchandise of the Clippers that almost never wins, and what about the Knicks the MSG, still gets a lot of fans in the stadium, when its been years since they are good.
what about the Jazz, never won a title but their fans are not bandwagon, got a full arena almost every night.

 

I hate it but your right. I wish things were different. Champions or worst team in the league, I will stand by them. It's hard to look at any other team and like them more than the group we have.

 

i still follow the team, no chance for playoffs this year but young kids are developing. i for one was and still is skeptical of the kevin martin acquisition.

 

My interest in my ROCKETS is still very high! I will not give up on them, they're my boys!!!

 

Baseball plays 162 games a year in 50,000 capacity stadiums. And more people per week watch MLB on TV than NBA games. Football plays once a week but in mostly sold-out 70,000 stadiums with ratings through the roof. Monday night football is a top 5 show every week.

The NBA is simply ****tily run. Too many games, too long a season, too predictable of officiating meaning regular season games are not worth watching for the non-diehard.

Put it this way, even a small market team like the KC Chiefs get 75,000 fans to a home game. If a top 5 market modern basketball venue like Toyota center is half full (say 9,000 fans in attendance) you'd have to have 8 home games to equal the attendance to 1 NFL game at 8 times the overhead. This doesn't even include the ratings or TV revenue.

I agree that if you dont know anything about the sport basketball is the most entertaining to watch cuz there are big black dudes dunking on each other. I am a huge basketball fan. But if you understand the strategy football is the best sport to watch. If you really care about a team then baseball is awesome too, because each batting opportunity is a dramatic event that can turn around a game.

Orem you took the worlds out of my mouth. They're comparing a crate of apples to part of a crate of oranges. ESPN-run "game of the week" type games are not how most fans watch the team. Those games are for a nationwide non-market audience of high profile teams. The most profitable and watched baseball programming are regional networks like YES network, NESN etc.

Also especially for TNT Inside the NBA people tune in to check a score or see what Charles Barkley has to say instead of watching the entire broadcast. And it's on at 12 AM eastern time competing with the George Lopez Show or Letterman, while MLB is usually prime time.

 

I haven't paid much attention to them since they got rid of Landry. The team looks completely different now. I'm just waiting for Yao to come back at this point.

 

I really hate to see them struggle and have dry spells but I cant wait till next year when we have YAO MING.

 

Even during the semifinals last season, I noticed there were a ton of empty seats in the lower levels. Are that many seats really held by corporate douchebags who would rather sit around talking business sipping on wine than cheer for the team in their seats?

 

I see it completely differently. I graduated from HS in 08 and everyone I grew up with were Rockets fans above all else. No one cared about the Texans (in fact I don't know a single die hard Texans fan), and many people were fans of baseball teams other than the Astros, and even the ones that were "Astros fans" like myself, never had a huge interest in the team. The Rockets were always #1 and it wasn't close. IDK how old you are, but you seem older than myself. To me, it seems like the Astros have an older fanbase and the Rockets have a younger one (and like I said for the Texans, idk know how they sell out so many games, cause I don't know a single person that is a true fan).

 

Yeah, they get no play on the radio at all. 610 only talks about them when they have a guest on from the rockets but once that guest hangs up, they jump on immedietly to the Texans or something else.

I thought Matt and Adam would speak more about rockets but they hardly ever mention it, very dissapointing, it's all colllege hoops and some astros and texans.

 

The problem is that a lot of the NBA fans are casual or casual minded and are more fans of big names or big things things like championships rather then actual teams these days. Or maybe since the beginning, either way, the Rockets don't really have one of those they can latch onto.


The Rockets' biggest superstar is Yao Ming and he isn't on the court. Now, like many predicted in the early part of the season, most of publicity from inside of Houston and out is focused on Aaron Brooks and Luis Scola, great players but they lack the record of long time success and fame to propel them as draws for most casuals.


Personally, I love the Texans but the Rockets were the first Houston team I can say I loved and will always be such. And with our roster, I personally see a bucket load of potential for the future success of our team.

 

yup, 8 years

Our peak of dedicated fan base was of course the back 2 back years, once we hit rock bottom with the Francis years, most of them left, and came back after we got Tmac because he was at his peak, was compared to Kobe at the time, and someone to cheer for other than Yao.

The dedicated fans aren't hard to keep, because they are loyal to their team, its the casual fans that we need to keep them interested and get them into dedicated status.