Tag Archives: NBA

Dynamic pricing at sporting events

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Kevin Arnovitz at Truehoop reports that the New Orleans Hornets are embracing variable pricing for tickets for the upcoming NBA season. But more interesting is the link to a story about tickets sold by the San Francisco Giants, the first team to completely embrace dynamic pricing.

Last season (2009), the Giants played around the concept of dynamic pricing. Based on demand for tickets for each game, the prices in this section of about 2,000 tickets would fluctuate. When I was in San Francisco last August and was looking for Giants tickets, I saw this section online and was intrigued by it. (For the record, I bought tickets in other seats on StubHub which were cheaper than the variably-priced seats.)

Based on the success of this small sample, the Giants went ahead and introduced dynamic pricing for all the tickets in AT&T Park (a beautiful stadium) during the 2010 season. They are the first team to do this and now several other teams are tinkering with the concept on a small scale.

The anger in Cleveland over LeBron

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While the story of a fan dressed in a LeBron James Miami Heat jersey being escorted out of the Cleveland Indians game last night makes the rounds, Joe Posnanski of Sports Illustrated writes about the anger present in the city of Cleveland. According to Posnanski, what makes this anger different from anger after  sports letdowns of the past (of which Cleveland has seen its share) is that the anger seems to be growing.

Those who don’t watch or follow sports sometimes say that it doesn’t matter who wins or loses or how the local team finishes. Posnanski is suggesting the opposite: this anger about an NBA transaction is present all over a large city.

My questions: how much does this sports move really diminish the quality of life in Cleveland? Are workers less productive or are fewer business deals made? Do less visitors come to Cleveland now that it is not the city of LeBron? Can the image of Cleveland across the United States sink (even with Forbes already earlier this year naming it the most miserable city in the United States)? Would residents move away from Cleveland because LeBron also moved away?

One hour in…and no free agent movement

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The greatest class of free agents in any major sport has now been officially free for over one hour – but it will likely be some time before LeBron, Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh, and others sign with NBA teams.

At this point, the NBA couldn’t ask for better publicity. This free-agent bonanza almost overwhelmed an actually interesting seven game NBA Finals, completely overshadowed the NBA draft, and it is likely to drag out for some time as teams throw the kitchen sink at LeBron and others.

But with all the hype, I feel underwhelmed with the lack of activity thus far…

Sports redemption vs. true redemption

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Former NBA player Manute Bol died recently. Bol’s primary claim to fame was that he stood 7 feet 7 inches tall. Upon his passing, Bol was hailed as a “humanitarian.” As Jon Shields, a professor at Claremont McKenna College, points out in the Wall Street Journal, this humanitarianism was rarely linked to Bol’s strong Christian faith. The redemption Bol believed in was quite different than the redemption sports journalists typically write about. Rather than overcoming odds on the basketball court to finally reach a personal accomplishment, “Bol reportedly gave most of his fortune, estimated at $6 million, to aid Sudanese refugees. As one twitter feed aptly put it: “Most NBA cats go broke on cars, jewelry & groupies. Manute Bol went broke building hospitals.”

Shields argues that the redemption Bol was after was not connected to personal rewards but was instead “the Christian understanding of redemption has always involved lowering and humbling oneself. It leads to suffering and even death.

The odd world of the NBA

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With the greatest free agent class in history set free on July 1, the grading of the winners and losers in the NBA draft among various media outlets is interesting. The draft, as it is in all sports, is about potential and youth.

Two teams that are consistently showing up as winners: the Chicago Bulls and Miami Heat. These teams did little in the draft. In fact, their goal in recent months has been to get rid of players, rather than add them. Both teams have been very successful in limiting their rosters so they have more free agent money to spend. They were not interested in the youth and potential – and this is seen as a good thing.

Of course it is a good thing if LeBron James or Dwayne Wade or the other big names sign with their teams. A reminder: these roster moves are all for free agent possibilities. One wonders what might happen if a team got their roster down to 3-5 players and then no big name free agents wanted to come. What kind of roster could one have by season’s start in November? Chicago and Miami are not in danger of this…but it would be a horrible, horrible letdown.

Update 11:25 AM 6/25/10: Yahoo Sports is reporting that notorious fixer Worldwide Wes is telling people Lebron and Chris Bosh are headed to Chicago:

To listen to World Wide Wes, LeBron will never look back on Cleveland. “He’s up out of there,” is the way he tells it to people, but LeBron’s Akron crew has to tsk-tsk such public talk because they all live in Northeast Ohio, and maybe always will. “We’re going to Chicago,” William Wesley tells people, “and Chris Bosh is coming, too.”