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The following is a reflection and commentary on my time as a Portland Trailblazers season ticket holder, but it easily applies to anyone who has ever owned season tickets to any professional sports team. NBA? NFL? MLB? NHL? NCAA? Whatever the acronym is for soccer? Different sports, same experiences. Read on and tell me if I'm wrong.
Four seasons ago two friends and I bought a half-season ticket package for the Portland Trailblazers. At that point in franchise history Zach Randolph was the king of Blazerland, Roy and Aldridge were a couple of rookies, and the playoffs were just a gleam in Kevin Pritchard's eye. They were terrible, arguably one of the worst teams in the league and tabbed as the oh-so-clever "Jailblazers". They were so bad that they couldn't even give away tickets, which was a great opportunity for us because we couldn't really afford tickets.
As kids who grew up in a one sport city we were naturally huge Trailblazer fans. Going to a game was a rare luxury. Tickets were saved. Stories were told. Memories were made. Season tickets were nothing more than a dream, something to aspire to when we were old and rich. So, naturally you can imagine our delight when we discovered that season tickets were AFFORDABLE. We were 24 year olds fresh out of college with roommates and mediocre jobs, surely we weren't the kinds of people with season tickets.
But we are! Or, at least we were...
That first season in section 223 was magical. The arena may have been half empty but we didn't care, we had tickets to 21 games, guaranteed. And even though the Rose Garden was half full, the fans that were there were true fans, and we were loud. When expectations are that low any success is met with passionate cheers and support, and the players responded to it. The better they played, the louder we cheered, which made them play even better. And then a funny thing happened, they started winning.
That's when the season ticket holder dream started to die.
We have had season tickets for four years. When we bought the tickets it was with the underlying assumption that we would have these for many, many years. Someday we were going to be bringing our kids to these seats. But, with each winning season came increased expectations, an increased fan base and of course, ticket prices increased to the maximum rate allowed by the NBA.
This is definitely about money, but it's not only about money. It's about respect for the fan.
See, when the Blazers got us as season ticket holders they got what should be their ideal customer. They got passionate, committed, middle class men in their 20's. We encourage other people to buy season tickets, we buy apparel and bumper stickers and merchandise, we adorn our cars and cubicles with Blazer memorabilia, we run a dedicated blog for fans. We have made the Blazers a part of our life. If you were starting a company could you think of a better possible customer? They can think of a better customer and unfortunately it's not us, it's corporate sponsorships who buy seats and use them as a tax write off.
I know this because they've told me. They aggressively court businesses to buy luxury suites and season tickets in the lower level. What better way to impress clients and reward customers than with a trip to a Blazer game? They get a fun night out, the business gets a tax write off, and the Blazers get to increase those ticket prices and cash those checks, while pushing the real fans to the rafters or out of the arena all together.
It makes perfect sense for businesses to buy tickets for those very reasons and I don't blame them one bit, but I do blame the Trailblazers. I blame them for caring about nothing more than the bottom line and marginalizing true fans in the process. When we first started going to games the arena was empty, but we still managed to build an incredible home court advantage. Those fans were loud and passionate because they wanted to be there. They chose to spend their time and money on a Blazer game because they genuinely cared. The Rose Garden became a nightmare for opposing teams, with crowds so deafening that fans would go home with their ears ringing.
That home court advantage has disappeared this season. The Blazers have slipped from the 4th best home record in 2009, to the 14th best home record in 2010 and it's no coincidence. The raucous fans have been replaced with clients from out of town, or with secretaries rewarded for handling an especially stressful month, or with empty seats because the game isn't "big enough" to attract a crowd. It's a joke, and the Blazers have done it to themselves.
Other ticket pricing "innovations" include tiered pricing based on the quality of the opponent, and a price chart with so many different colored sections that it looks like the seating chart is sponsored by Craylola. All of these things help the Blazers bottom line in the short term, but they drastically damage their fan loyalty in the long run. By alienating their loyal fan base and catering to passive fans they have created an unstable business model. Whereas loyal fans like us would buy tickets in both good seasons and bad, fickle fans and businesses won't because they won't be able to justify the wasted expense on an inferior product.
Anyone who pays attention to the NBA has heard the not-so-quiet whispers about an impending lockout stemming from the fact that at least one third of the teams are losing money. And, if they haven't heard the whispers, surely they've turned on a game in Minnesota or Sacramento or Washington or Houston and seen arenas so sparse that they could be confused with the WNBA. They think it can't happen here because the fans are so passionate. That's true, we are passionate, but they no longer want our business.
Golden State had similar passionate fans when they went to the playoffs as an 8th seed and knocked off the Mavericks. They increased their prices in the following years but failed to achieve any measure of success. Their passionate fans are gone and the team is currently for sale. Whoops.
There is a major problem in professional sports, and it stems from the fact that real fans are not coveted and respected by the teams that they support. It's a one sided relationship devised by their own hand. When they're losing they will beg for your eyes, ears and dollars, but when they're winning they jack their prices to the moon and step on your head so that they can get to the big fish that can afford the exorbitant prices.
In our case they could have cashed our checks for the next 40 years. We were built to be lifelong fans who go to games, buy the merchandise and support the team. But they spit in our face, and we won't soon forget it. In the era of I-phones and gamecasts and HD TV's so clear you can see the beads of sweat on Brandon Roy's face it is easier than ever to be a fan without spending a nickel. I don't NEED to go to Blazer games. I'd like to go, but I'd just as soon go to a packed sports bar, a friend's house or my own living room and enjoy the game with the other real fans who couldn't afford tickets.
As a consumer there are more products/events than ever that are vying for your decreasing discretionary dollars, and it is foolish and shortsighted of the Trailblazers to shake down their fans in this manner. It is a business, and their goal is to make money. Their strategy is working right now, but we'll see what happens when the winning stops.
I will always love the Blazers, I just wish they loved me back.
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I love how the team tries all these "portland friendly", liberal-like initiatives such as boasting of the greenist arena, switching to jones soda etc.. but when it comes down to, the blazers as a business are as annoyingly mainstream corporate as they come. I am not a season ticket holder and most likely will not be as I am barely able to afford upper level tickets for my son and i as it is- couple that with the bs comcast deals and it is literally the blazers business model giving the finger to regular fans. 
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