Does the loss of the team in nearby Seattle mean more fans for the Blazers? Maybe this means much better ticket sales to help the team's financial picture...
they've all but sold out the garden for next year. I'm not sure how a team 180 miles north of Portland will really change the ticket sales much.
It might, but I imagine there's quite a few Sonics fans who have been permanently turned off by the NBA and the way that the whole situation was mishandled by Stern and his cronies. As for "much better ticket sales" the team was already back to selling out every night after the middle of December, so there's not much better you can do than sold out.
TV revenue? This would be the biggest thing I can think of. More viewers, bigger payouts on revenue generated from Blazer programming. -Petey
You can raise ticket prices. Selling out is often not the ideal measure in efficiency in maximizing revenues. It's ideal to raise ticket prices to the point where demand is being met exactly (no one wants tickets that can't get them due to lack of seats). Of course, Allen probably doesn't need to maximize revenues, so better for the fans if ticket prices aren't raised.
Allen is always going to want to maximize revenues. But to answer the OP's question, I don't see Sonics fans flocking to the Blazers. It would be great if it happened, but I don't think it will (at least, not until the Blazers are perennial contenders).
In terms of $ (average per) of tickets, the Blazers were on the bottom half of the NBA teams last year. Link -Petey
Maximizing revenues would also mean having some limits on spending on the roster, so let's hope he doesn't want to maximize revenues.
Personally, I have a real distaste for everything that comes from Seattle. I don't like the Mariners, Seahawks, or most of the people for that matter. That article that the Seattle Times ran (I think it was the times) about how the people from Seattle felt like we were there little brother or something. How could they root for the Blazers? Suck it Seattle, we've got a team and you don't! na na na na na
Revenues aren't the same as profits. He's got every right to try to increase revenue if we're selling out via ticket increases. But hopefully he'll never make decisions for financial reasons at the expense of talent.
I live in Seattle... about 5 blocks from the Key Arena. I don't really have a ton of friends that are massive Sonics fans (Seahawks? Yes. Mariners? Less so, but yeah. Not Sonics, though, even before the move). I have a few, though, and at least one of them has decided to become a Blazers fan, all out, for a year. As an experiment to see what it's like to root for a team he grew up hating and whether he can just give a crap at all considering the team he grew up loving left him all alone. The other friends are more angry at the NBA than they are looking at it as an emotional exercise. Ed O.
As for revenues: I agree that it's not a given that Allen will seek to maximize revenues. He might have cheaper tickets than the fan base would support for a variety of non-revenue reasons, including avoiding bad press or building up goodwill with the community. In the long run, it could be argued, this sort of "soft" decisionmaking can pay off with increased fan base and therefore revenue generation, but after a period of the Blazers--and even Allen himself, unbelievably to me--taking heat from the city and its denizens, he might be willing to be generous. Ed O.
Depends on what was meant by "revenues." It means income, which can be gross or net. Net income would be profits. I wasn't speaking about rights. He absolutely has the right. And since I don't live in Portland, I don't care about ticket prices. If jacking up prices will encourage him to spend more on the team, I'd be all for it. It simply seems to me that some ownerships are more zealous about maximizing (net) revenues by raising ticket prices to maximum that the market will bear, like the Boston Red Sox. Others tend to be less so, like the Green Bay Packers. It's not at all a problem to me if Allen chooses to squeeze every cent he can out of attendance. The only thing I want from Allen is to spend as much as possible on team talent.
To be honest? We have a number of posters from Seattle who really hate the NBA, Stern, and the team/owner for bailing on the city. I thought this was an interesting question to ask.
