NBA is expecting lower revenue from gate receipts

November 2, 3:51 AMSports Business ExaminerJosh Lobdell

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The argument will always be that sports for the most part are recession proof. When a sports fan buys tickets, or gear, or something else that they are doing so based on emotion not on any economic principal. With that in mind the NBA is preparing to see a decline in gate revenue for the 2009-10 season, but so far the only decrease seems to be that they are selling season ticket packages at a discounted rate.

Sports tickets are an opportunity business, when times are good and the team is good they will sell tickets. When times are bad, or the team is bad it creates opportunities for other fans to attend live games, this seems to be the case for the NBA.

Heading into last season, season ticket renewals for the league as a whole were at 80% or so. Now in a bad economy 28 of the 30 NBA either cut prices or reduced them and the league sees a high seventies percentage of season tickets being renewed.

While that number is down a little, and the new season tickets holders are paying a little less this trend seems to show the long term life of NBA ticket sales should be very strong. As teams bring in new season ticket holders they are creating new fans, the important number here will be how many of these new season ticket holders stay on when the economy improves.

Last season the NBA drew an average of 17,520 fans per game and 21.5 million fans for the entire season. League officials are hesitant to put any numbers on projections for the current season since many teams are implementing a variable pricing system that could dramatically change the price of tickets day-to-day.

The Miami Heat and Portland Trailblazers are implementing systems that could change the prices of tickets based on the day of the game as well as the opponent. So a Tuesday night game with the LA Clippers would cost a lot less than say a Friday night game with the Boston Celtics. This should encourage many fans to come out and take advantage of the deals.