Hoops

NBL ticket prices

Those are courtside seats. Of course they're expensive.

Anonymous: And the thing is people buy them.

Anon #713... another planet where 8000+ members are already on the books and they are expecting 10000. If people werent willing to pay that much they wouldnt charge it. Clearly they are doing it better than other teams, Perth have the biggest stadium and it alweay looks full, the 36ers, illawarra, cairns play in in small, old arenas that can hold not much more than 5000 (not their fault just a fact) and still cant fill them. A post earlier said the 36ers charge $20 for student tix, thats awesome, I'm sure the cats would do the same if they couldnt get 5000 to a game.

Dont think so

https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/wa/a/29772670/salesman-marvin-outlines-his-vision/

Furthermore if the club does react and bring prices down due to low crowds then this would come across at worst manipulative and at best amateurish. They have painted themselves into a corner here.

"If its so expensive to run perth arena how can this price discrepancy be justified?"

Pretty simply, at a guess. The club would much rather receive a large sum of money once per year from a basketball fan than have to advertise and promote to get a small sum for one game, then advertise and promote to get them back for another game, and so on.

Think of how much less effort & expense they'd need to put in if every seat was locked away at the start of the season.

Hopefully the club can get by with the birds in the hand as you say because there are going to be plenty of empty blue seats at the games.

Not to mention a heap of pissed off ppl who feel they have been unfairly targeted and priced out because they cant make it to every home game but still want to support the team. Live foxtel coverage and streaming will be further incentive not to go to games.

This is not the way to go about addressing the clubs financial issues.

No idea supernintendo what it costs to run a game at perth arena. But judging by responses cost per game under a membership is almost half the price if you were to buy individual game at ticketek.

If its so expensive to run perth arena how can this price discrepancy be justified? I can only conclude the club is trying to persuade ppl to buy memberships by making it unaffordable to go to individual games.

This is unprecedented in any sport in aust excluding those events where demand outstrips supply e.g. finals

Train, those are membership prices. Single-game tickets generally cost twice that. I'm paying just under $50 a game for my gold membership, but a single ticket is $107.

I think the main issue that will affect crowd figures this year will be the length of the season. There are several instances this season where a club plays home twice in a week

"Last year these would have sold out two weeks ago."

"And why did the cats wait till 5 nights before tip off to put tickets on sale? "

I think you have your answer as to why those tickets didn't sell out 2 weeks ago.

Stop being a negative nancy.

I bought a season membership for about $350, good seats in bronze with side view. That's about $25 per game. I don't know what all the complaining about high prices is.

If you're sitting in the front four rows, you don't get to whine about the price of tickets.

Seriously, people.

^Tickets wouldn't have been sold out two weeks prior as they weren't on sale for two weeks.

I agree prices are way too high though.

It appears that the Wildcats growth is rubbing a lot of long time supporters the wrong way.

I commend the organisation for pushing with promotion and marketing.

But it really annoys me that my Captains Club membership costs $950 for a season.

All I want is my seat and priority tickets to playoffs.

They bundle in all this "Extra value" to make it seem like you are getting a special package because you have the closest seats in the house - when really, having the closest seats in the house is all the value I need.

They won't be getting anywhere near 10k this season at these prices.

Case in point, first home game vs traditional rivals NZ and the cheapest alcohol free nickel tickets at 50 bucks for family are still available. Last year these would have sold out two weeks ago.

Why? They have put them basically last row in the corner whereas last year it would have been still far but not right up back and probably side on court.

I can't go to all games so season membership makes no sense. And why did the cats wait till 5 nights before tip off to put tickets on sale?

I've supported wildcats for over 25 years since the old days and I will continue to do so but unfortunately not by attending games since the club seems to be a little bit out of touch with financial reality. 200 bucks for a family seating in silver seats? Pfft please wake up mr. Marvin.

Perth Arena is a pretty expensive place to play at. Of course having said that Perth is a lot more expensive town to buy things at than Adelaide and prices for Coffee are easily past Melbourne and Sydney. Again as has been stated however Perth Arena is centrally located and they still get 10k plus to games so they have to be doing right.

Can you imagine how the Wildcats game prices would go down in a place like Adelaide or Illawara? Riots.

Which does beg the question. If some places are charging a 1/3 of what Perth does, how the hell DO their teams stay in business?

Wow, there are still rumormongers stating the Wildcats memberships are severely down? Damn. Thought they had all moved on the to the Moon landing was faked thread.

"The club is well down on membership this season"

If your talking about the Wildcats they had roughly 7600 from memory at start of last season and roughly the same this year.

The club usually snares a bunch of memberships between the start of season and December/Jan. These are sold as part season memberships.

So really they are still on par with last season.

The club is well down on membership this season and if they think increasing ticket prices are goibg to help plug revenue hole, i think they are in for a rude surprise. From memory on what i paid last year for tickets we are talkng a 70% increasr on prices. The top priced ticket at hisense is less that a silver adult seat at perth arena.

Price elasticity of demand people.

Are they getting the word out? Both Hay Street Mall and Murray Street Mall in the Perth CBD have Flag Pole advertising for upcoming Wildcats games. There is a radio advert, a double full page ad in todays local paper, Ive seen a few tv adverts for them too.

There are also the obligatory bus stop signs that seem to alternate between a hair shamppo and the Wildcats advert.

Not to mention the best advertisment of all, teenagers/kids walking around the city wearing Cats shirts/singlets.

Fair point, lolball.
For $200 in Perth, 4 people could watch a Cats game, or they could each get a pint of beer and share a bowl of sweet potato fries with tangy tomato relish. So it seems expensive but the Cats game will keep you entertained for a lot longer ;)

Seriously though even Nick (in that article linked here a few days ago) acknowledged the "two-speed" nature of the Cats ticket sales - i.e. that the very best seats in the house and the very cheapest ones are what get snapped up first. Unfortunately the people who just want a good view and don't care at all about price, are not that numerous.
It'll be a real test for the Wildcats this season after most sports fans in Perth have been engaged all through September with AFL.
I hope they're promoting the hell out of this Friday's home opener.

Makes Foxtel a little more attractive then, doesn't it?

agree with *another anon*.

while everyone wants to be apart of something special, they can charge what they like and people will pay.

The Pioneers are playing their first pre-season games this weekend against the 36ers development squad in the Mount.

Are we expected to take much from these games? I remember last season when the Pioneers weren't able to keep pace with the youngsters and the year before that some of the home town guys tried to pick on the young opposition, which was meant to be some sort of toughness ploy that didn't continue into the SEABL season.

I expect the Pioneers to show some form, but please don't get too excited. There is a long way to go, but at least with a credentialed coach, the side is going to be far more cohesive and motivated.