Trendlines: NBA playoff ticket prices are out of control
Welcome to Trendlines, your weekly installment of what's trending up and what's trending down in sports.
This week we're talking about the NBA playoffs, which are hot, hot, hot in the city that I am currently in (New York).
The New York Knickerbockers (or Knicks) are up 2-0 on their rival Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference semifinals.
Can the Knicks go all the way? I don't know, but what I do know is tickets to Game 3 of their series against the Celtics are some of the hottest items in town.
That's where we start with trending up.
The cheapest ticket right now on Vivid Seats is about $600. Last week, it was under $400. That's an increase of somewhere between 70% and 80%, depending on what time you check the website.
I don't know who has that much money to spend on a seat, though it speaks to the fact that ticket prices are out of control.
The last time the Knicks were this good (the mid 1990s) you could get a face value playoff seat in the semifinals for $25. Even if you take inflation into account and that tickets were 10 times as high on the secondary market, such a seat would still be less than what a playoff ticket is going for now.
Who can afford this stuff?
I will admit that I'm not the most ardent NBA fan, hence my references to mid-90s basketball. I didn't quite realize how often the Celtics would be attempting and missing three-pointers this series.
Indeed, the whole league is attempting more and more three-pointers. The average team is now attempting a little less than 38 three-pointers per game. When I was a kid, it was slightly less than 10.
I don't know if I like the new style of play. I guess it works for some teams and doesn't work for others.
It hasn't been working for the Celtics who have been a combined 25-for-100 (yes they're averaging 50 attempts a game) in this series.
Did somebody say brick?
The Celtics may be missing, but John Tesh's basketball anthem does not. The famous theme song for NBC is coming back next season as NBC has regained NBA television rights.
Apparently, a lot of people are, like myself, looking forward to that theme song. Google searches for 'Roundball Rock' are averaging more this month than any month on record.
I guess I can say I'm not too surprised? Tesh's live performance of the song has nearly three million views on YouTube.
But more than anything else, the theme song is full of nostalgia. The NBA has never had more viewers than it did in the 1990s, when 'Roundball Rock' was the league's anthem for viewers.
The NBA will probably never be that popular again, though maybe the theme can bring them some good mojo.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Sky Sports News' golden age at an end as rival platforms turn up the volume
A constant in pubs, gyms and hotel breakfast rooms, almost always with the sound down. Perhaps not since cinema's silent age have faces been so familiar without the general public knowing their voices. The vibe is more casual than in previous times, shirt sleeves rather than business suits, but the formula remains the same: a carousel of news, clips, quotes, quips, centred around highlights, all framed within a constant flow of results, fixtures and league tables. Sky Sports News hits 27 years of broadcasting in August, having been launched for the 1998-99 football season by BSkyB. As the domestic football season concluded, news came of changes within the Osterley-based newsroom. Seven members of the broadcast talent team would be leaving, including the long-serving Rob Wotton and the senior football reporter Melissa Reddy, within a process of voluntary redundancies. Advertisement Sky sources – not those Sky sources – are keen to state the changes are not a cost-cutting exercise, instead a redress of SSN's place within a changing media environment. Ronan Kemp, the One Show presenter and Celebrity Goggleboxer, is understood to be in discussions to join Sky and despite Wotton's departure, Ref Watch will still be serving those who get their kicks from re-refereeing matches and VAR calls. Rolling news, which became common currency around the time of the initial Gulf war with Iraq is no longer the go-to information environment. Sky News, SSN's sister organisation, is going through similar changes, including the loss of the veteran anchor Kay Burley. The smartphone, where news alerts supplant even social media, takes the strain of keeping the world informed of Micky van de Ven's latest hamstring injury. Desperate to hear even more from Jamie Carragher and Gary Neville? There are podcasts and YouTube channels available at a swipe. In the US, ESPN's SportsCenter and its accompanying ESPNews channel were the progenitors of a medium copied globally and by Sky in launching SSN. SportsCenter is a flagship in marked decline from a golden 1990s era that made American household names of presenters such as Stuart Scott, Keith Olbermann and Dan Patrick. ESPN, an organisation in the process of taking itself to digital platforms as cable TV gets mothballed, closed SportsCenter's Los Angeles studio in March. Linear TV's death will be slow, but it is dying nonetheless as streaming, all bundles and consumer choice, takes hold. Meanwhile, YouTube channels, with production values way below industry standard, amass huge audiences for fan-owned, independent media. Advertisement The time of viewers tuning in for 10pm highlights voiced over by presenters' catchphrases – Scott's 'boo yah!' being the prime example – has long passed. Social media and YouTube have killed the demand. Though live sports remain the foundation of broadcasting contracts, highlights and analysis can be watched at the time of the viewers' choice. Digital is where the eyeballs go, and what the advertising dollar is attracted to, despite the ubiquity of Go Compare et al. Viewing figures remain healthy but the game is now about far more than ratings. SSN's imperial period was the early millennium days of Dave Clark and Kirsty Gallacher's toothsome double act, to a time when the yellow ticker of breaking news held great sway, though not always delivering on its promise of earthquake journalism (news of Nicky Shorey's Reading contract extension, anyone?). Millie Clode, Di Stewart, Charlotte Jackson, Kelly Cates: a nation turned its lonely eyes to them. Then there was transfer deadline day, more important than the football itself. Long, frantic hours spent hearing Jim White's Glaswegian whine declare anything could happen on this day of days. In the early years it often did, from Peter Odemwingie's mercy dash to Loftus Road to the brandishing of a sex toy in the earhole of reporter Alan Irwin outside Everton's training ground. Another reporter, Andy 'four phones' Burton, labelled the night the 2008 window closed: 'The best day of my life, apart from when my son was born.' Eventually, though, it became too knowing. Not even White's yellow tie, as garish as his hype, accompanied by Natalie Sawyer's yellow dress, could stop the event from becoming desperate hours chasing diminishing returns. Live television is a challenging environment, especially with nothing to feed off. Advertisement Though many presenters have been lampooned – abused in the more carrion social media age – the difficulty of 'going live' with an earpiece full of instructions and timings should never be underestimated. How does Mike Wedderburn, the channel's first presenter, make it look so easy? When, in a broadcasting-carriage dispute between Virgin and Sky, Setanta Sports News was given brief life in 2007 – 22 months as the Dagmar to Sky's Queen Vic – it was made apparent how hard, and costly, the business can be. Over-exposure to SSN – as happens when someone works in a newspaper sports department, say – can lead to contempt. The joins can be seen, too. Haven't they done that same gag for the past six hours and each time pretended it was an ad lib? Just what is Gary Cotterill up to this time? Why did Bryan Swanson always use such portentous tones? From morning till night, it would be ever-present. On weekend evenings, when you caught the skilled veteran duo of Julian Waters and the late David Bobin running through the day's events, you knew it was time to leave the office, down that late drink, question your life choices, the pair's clipped tones taking on the effect of a lonely late-night cab ride. SSN is forced to move with the times. As is the case across the industry, journalists have often been supplanted by influencers, as the mythical, perhaps unreachable, 'younger audience' is chased. That is not to say the channel is short of decent reporting. In the aftermath of the 2022 Champions League final in Paris, chief reporter Kaveh Solhekol produced a superb account of the ensuing chaos and danger while others floundered for detail. Advertisement SSN, like SportsCenter across the Atlantic, is now more a production factory for content being sent across the internet, published to multiple platforms, than it is a rolling news channel. Within press statements around the redundancies there was the word 'agile', a term repurposed – and overused – in the business world, but meaning doing more with less. Next season, as heavily trailed on SSN right now, Sky will have 215 Premier League live matches to show, including every game played on Sundays. That requires the company's shift in focus, for Sky Sports News in particular. Though look up wherever you are and it will still be on in the corner, almost certainly with the sound down.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Charles Barkley Takes Shot At Knicks After Firing Tom Thibodeau
Charles Barkley Takes Shot At Knicks After Firing Tom Thibodeau originally appeared on Athlon Sports. After defeating the defending champion Boston Celtics in six games, Tom Thibodeau and the New York Knicks saw their season come to an end in the Eastern Conference finals, falling to the Indiana Pacers. Advertisement Thibodeau joined the Knicks in 2020 and has made it to the NBA playoffs in four of his five seasons there. However, despite the recent success, New York elected to part ways with Thibodeau following its elimination. The Knicks have looked into interviewing four current NBA head coaches, including the Dallas Mavericks' Jason Kidd, the Minnesota Timberwolves' Chris Finch, the Houston Rockets' Ime Udoka and the Atlanta Hawks' Quin Snyder. However, according to ESPN's Shams Charania, the Hawks became the fourth team to deny the Knicks an interview, leaving New York empty-handed to begin its coaching search. Outside of these four potential candidates, New York hasn't revealed much of a plan going forward without Thibodeau. And NBA legend Charles Barkley does not approve. NBA analyst Charles Barkley criticized the New York Jairaj-Imagn Images On Wednesday, Barkley joined ESPN for its pregame coverage of Game 3 of the NBA Finals between the Pacers and the Oklahoma City Thunder. The former Phoenix Suns forward was not pleased with New York's coaching decision, calling them out live on air. Advertisement "The Knicks gotta be the stupidest damn people in the world," Barkley said. "Like, you don't fire a good coach like that and don't have a plan. I mean, Thibs did a hell of a job. Obviously, something's going on there, but you don't have a plan, and now, the three coaches turn you down. You gotta have a plan, man. And they don't have a plan. Now... I mean, I don't know what the hell they are going to do." Although Thibodeau hasn't won an NBA championship as a head coach, he has still put together an impressive coaching resume. He won two NBA Coach of the Year awards and even led the Knicks to their first conference finals in 25 years. Related: Warriors Turn Heads With Steph Curry Post on Monday This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jun 12, 2025, where it first appeared.
Washington Post
an hour ago
- Washington Post
David Greenwood, former UCLA star and NBA champion, dies at 68 after cancer battle
LOS ANGELES — David Greenwood, who was one of coach John Wooden's last recruits at UCLA and went on to win an NBA championship with Detroit during a 12-year pro career, has died. He was 68. Greenwood died Sunday in Riverside, California, after battling cancer, the school said Wednesday, citing family members.
