]<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\nThe NBA’s grueling schedule comes at a cost to players and fans<\/h2>\n The NBA has never been richer with high-end talent than it is now, and the product can be a remarkable one when the best players are sharing the court together. Problem is, you never know who you are going to see during the regular season, and the gamble for fans trying to attend these games is costlier than ever.<\/p>\n
Advancements in sports science have helped players enjoy longer careers. Load management and longer rehabilitation times are employed as safeguards against injuries and re-injury, respectively. Unfortunately, we cannot eliminate either entirely, so the regular season has become a high-wire act of managing existing injuries and trying to prevent future ones. What gets lost in between is the fan’s gambit, even if the ultimate goal is to ensure the roster is as healthy as possible entering the playoffs in its pursuit of a championship.<\/p>\n
Take the Los Angeles Clippers, for example. They are one of six teams in the Western Conference with a winning record, currently in position for a guaranteed playoff spot, owners of the league’s sixth-best title odds, according to BetMGM. They are a container in theory and a MASH unit in practice. Eighteen months removed from ACL surgery, Kawhi Leonard has missed more games than he has played this season, mostly managing that right knee. Paul George has missed 13 games to soreness in his right knee and hamstring.<\/p>\n
The Clippers have played six nationally televised games this season. Leonard missed the first four, and George sat the middle two. When they managed to get them both on the floor for a rare two-game slate full of stars on this year’s Thursday debut of NBA on TNT, they may as well have been shelved. Leonard rested each game surrounding it, and George has not played since. Both played fewer than 20 minutes facing a blowout loss in what was supposed to be a measuring-stick game against Nikola Jokic’s Denver Nuggets.<\/p>\n
Story continues<\/button><\/p>\nThis is no fault of the Clippers. Injuries happen, and playing through them runs the risk of losing a $42 million player for the remainder of this season or possibly longer, crippling a team’s title chances this season and beyond. They have to protect their investments, but so, too, should the fans. Additional preventative and rehabilitative absences, on top of the actual injuries, too often make ticket purchases a losing gamble.<\/p>\n
I bought two tickets to this week’s game between the New Orleans Pelicans and Boston Celtics as Christmas gifts for family members. the cheap<\/em> price for a pair of nosebleed seats on the secondary market was $226. That did not include parking, food, drinks or souvenirs. It adds up quick. And neither Zion Williamson nor Brandon Ingram \u2014 the major attractions on the opposition \u2014 played in a game that was all but over by the beginning of the fourth quarter. It was a watered-down product for a gassed-up price.<\/p>\nThis is not an exception. It is becoming the rule. Families of four theoretically spent an average of $444 to attend an NBA game last season, according to Team Marketing Report’s Fan Cost Index, which balances the primary cost of four non-premium tickets, parking, four hot dogs, two draft beers and a couple soda<\/p>\n
That is a 44% increase from 2012-13 and a 53% hike from when David Aldridge broached this subject for ESPN two decades ago. The average ticket price only moved from $47 to $56 from 2006-07 to 2015-16, but it reportedly exceeded $100 for the first time last season, despite a post-pandemic dip in attendance.<\/p>\n
That is if you are lucky. Most available tickets are caught in the vortex of a secondary market that can send prices soaring by more than 400%. Tickets for all but seven teams cost more than twice the original price upon resale, according to SeatGeek, pushing that average cost for a family of four closer to $1,000 a night. That is more than twice what it cost the same family on the same secondary market inside a decade ago.<\/p>\n
Unless you wait for the latest injury report before making your purchase and loading the kids into the car for a trip to the arena, you are also crossing your fingers that you actually see the product for which you paid.<\/p>\n\n