Tag: fan cost index

OKC Thunder ranked 21st among NBA in total costs to attend home games this season

A family of four would need to spend almost $360 to attend a Thunder home game this season, per @TheAthletic

The Athletic released an article this past Friday that ranked all 30 NBA teams in terms of the bang-for-your-buck Fan Cost Index (FCI), which summarizes the total costs of a family of four to attend an NBA game:

“The fan costs for the U.S. major sports leagues are calculated annually by Team Marketing Report, a Chicago-based sports business intelligence firm that since 1991 has crunched and published the numbers after conducting team surveys. The cost metrics are based on the average cost of four non-premium tickets, two beers, two sodas, four hot dogs, two souvenir hats (as a proxy for merch buying) and parking.

Premium seating isn’t included in the basic FCI rankings. Nor are secondary market ticket sales, which are a litmus test of a team’s popularity as a season progresses.”

The Thunder came in ranked 21st in the league with an FCI of $357.98 total for an outing to attend a home game at Paycom Center this past season. This is a 0.6 percent increase from last season.

Now, the Thunder have a unique case as they were the only team in the league last season who did not allow fans into their home games for the entire 36 games due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The article does not detail if the increase takes into account last season or the 2019-20 season, which was the last time the team had fans at then-Chesapeake Energy Arena.

Either way, while it is more expensive now to attend Thunder home games for a family of four, it is still relatively cheap when compared to the rest of the league. The league average for this season was $444.12.

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Study: Rockets at No. 6 in NBA in newly released fan cost index

The Knicks, Warriors, Lakers, Celtics, and Bulls were the only NBA teams in front of Houston in a newly released study of fan costs. Market size appears to be the primary factor.

The Houston Rockets rank No. 6 among the 30 NBA teams in “fan cost index” (FCI), according to a new study of the 2021-22 regular season by business intelligence firm Team Marketing Report (TMR).

The FCI measures costs such as tickets and concessions for a family of four to attend a regular-season NBA game. At Toyota Center, that came out to an average of $565.52, according to TMR’s research.

The five teams pricier than Houston are the Chicago Bulls ($570.50), Boston Celtics ($596.11), Los Angeles Lakers ($711.76), Golden State Warriors ($740.08), and New York Knicks ($936.72).

Understandably, as shown by the presence of the Knicks and Lakers in the top three, these rankings are more correlated with market size than on-court play. On the other end of the spectrum, the Memphis Grizzlies ($258.24) and Minnesota Timberwolves ($298.80) were two of the three cheapest teams, even though both made the 2022 NBA playoffs.

Houston is the fourth-largest city in the United States. Thus, even in a year where the Rockets had the league’s worst record (20-62), that largely accounts for the club’s top-10 placement in the cost index.

Even so, Houston’s average costs at Toyota Center rose by only 0.9% year on year, which is among the NBA’s lowest annual bumps. That can likely be attributed to the current on-court performance.

Per ESPN’s attendance tracker, the Rockets averaged 15,584 fans for each home game and filled an average of 86.3% of arena capacity. That ranks No. 21 in the NBA down from 100.1% and a No. 7 ranking in the most recent season with full-capacity crowds allowed (2019-20).

Back then, of course, the Rockets were still a perceived title contender and had the presence of perennial MVP candidate James Harden to draw fans. In 2022, that is no longer the case. While that may not be enough for ticket prices to outright drop, given the market size, it does seem to be putting prices in a holding pattern for the time being.

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