NBA Tickets

In just the past decade, NBA tickets have grown tougher to find (while NHL and MLB tickets have become more plentiful). To what can one ascribe this shift? Well, there are a couple of factors, including rising ticket prices, better corporate branding and marketing of the sport, and a consequent rise in fan interest--and that's just for starters.

As any Econ 101 student will tell you, price correlates directly with demand. The higher that demand, the more one can expect to find rising price points. If the league knows that 2X people are dying to catch a courtside contest where only X expressed interest in the past, that's a license for them to boost face values. Even if a slight rise cuts the number of consumers willing to pay that price in half, the league witnesses no loss in revenues.

NBA Tickets and International Appeal

One stipulation of the example above is that the NBA must continue to put out a first-rate product, which is precisely what it's done. The NBA is now the most internationally visible of the four major sports leagues, with keen interest bubbling not only in Europe, but in South America, Africa, Asia, and Australia as well. What's the secret to this worldwide following? The answer is, quite simply, worldwide recruiting.

Players such as Tim Duncan, Yao Ming, and Dirk Nowitzki do double duty in the NBA. For one thing, they ensure that fans from the Virgin Islands, China, and Germany, respectively, are tuning in and, when possible, buying tickets. At the same time, their superstardom--these are NBA standouts, after all--makes them that much more compelling for domestic audiences as well. Excellence has always been (and will continue to be) the leading impetus for high ticket sales.