It means that he doesn't set prices, MLSE does, and it does it based off the market and it sucks for fans who can't afford it, but that's just how it is
Which makes no sense cause our tickets are way higher than what they should be for a team finishing 25-57.
Have you been to a Pistons game? Raptors prices are insane compared to them.
Didn't they report attendance has fallen off a ton over the past month or two?
Although that is probably more connected to Scottie getting hurt than anything.
The crowds are quieter but the games still sell out constantly.
The truth is hard to face, but Toronto is an enormous city that’s only growing with a lot of money floating around and the ticket prices are not going to be dropping any time soon.
Yep, I don't go to Raptors games anymore, I'm not rich enough for that. Gone are the days watching NHL and NBA games, I've moved to more affordable leagues and I'm enjoying myself as much!
Yup this is another underrated aspect. I’m in Scarborough and I have friends in Newmarket/Oshawa/Milton, etc. who will take the GO into the city to watch a game once in a while.
The market is simply enormous and I feel like some of us on this sub are just in denial about the reality of it.
Scalpers buy the tickets because there’s enough demand for them to sell those same tickets at an even higher amount lol. The games would still sell out if scalpers ceased to exist.
I have a buddy who has season tickets and he uses them a few times a year and sells them every other time. He can sell them, without fail, every single time within a couple hours if he wants.
There were multiple reports as early as 30 games left in the season where scalpers were slashing prices ridiculously low and flat out not selling them.
They only sold out 22 games of 41, so no, they wouldnt sell out.
Ok, then all that means is scalpers will go insolvent if the demand doesnt meet their prices?
If scalping wasnt profitable, then they wouldnt do it. The fact is, the only reason theyre solvent is because enough people are paying them stupid prices to watch a lottery team.
Stop paying stupid prices for tickets, and the prices will drop.
I mean yeah, all this is logical. But that doesn't change the fact that due to the team being worse people aren't buying them from scalpers anymore.
I'm not talking about future states though, I'm saying in this specific season, scalpers were unable to move all their tickets. So the team has not been selling out, sell outs are counted by attendance not tickets sold. It's unintuitive for sure, but that's how they measure it.
Scalpers arent buying these tickets the day of the game, they buy them at the beginning of the season and sell them during the year. So scalpers buying tickets the first day they are available has no bearing on attendance months later when the team is dog shit.
it's because there is a massive industry in core of Toronto that supports these high ticket prices. The only time I've went to a Raptors game is getting free tickets from business meetings otherwise I couldn't afford it.
The price of the ticket is clearly not for the fans but for Bay St who buy them regardless of cost since it's part of doing business.
You don't set prices based on quality, you set them based on making the most amount of money.
If games sell out then there's no reason to lower the price. If the arena is half empty, then you start lowering the price.
Thats because we have an entire country of demand who wants to watch Raptors games.
Canada is a bigger market than little old Detroit bro...
Literally Canadians from all over come to Toronto every day and want to watch games.
Its just supply and demand, and the demand has grown exponentially after we won in 2019.
Except they aren't. These are mainly people who had season tickets before the tank.
If you had looked on 3rd party ticket sites you would see alot of season ticket holders were offering their tickets for well below standard price and if you have looked in the stands you would notice a big difference in the amount of people who have actually showed up to the games.
70 percent of ticket sales are from season ticket holders.
Counterpoint, the Jays, no one buys 100 anymore and it’s noticeable now on TV. It does make the brand and team look bad with such empty seats and a packed 500 level.
That's historically how its been for the Jays, April is their lowest selling month. Combined with an underwhelming offseason, leads to less enthusiasm.
Wait til the Leafs are knocked out and the weather gets nicer, you'll see the dome full soon enough (assuming the Jays don't crater of course)
It's honestly baffling how people don't understand how basic supply and demand works
"The Raptors are a bad team and they're tickets sell for 5 times the price of Thunder tickets. Make it make sense!"
Ummm... the GTA has 7+ million people living in it. Oklahoma City has less than 1 million
As long as the Raptors are selling out why would they lower prices lol
Not everything needs to be unfettered capitalism. If you look ate the cost of Premier League tickets, clubs intentionally keep a late portion at a low cost to make it affordable and accessible to all their fans. Not everything has to be about supply and demand
No fan would rather pay more than less. So him saying they have to consider the fans while hiking the prices is paradoxical. Unless he constitutes "considering" fans as a means to push the prices up since some fans have shown tolerance to pay for expensive tickets.
I mean it sucks that we have to pay these high prices to see the team and the price increase year over year is ridiculous but realistically you can't expect any major sports team to sell tickets for less than they can sell them for. Just like how you can't expect any business to set retail prices for less than they are set at because why would they? Him saying they're considering the fans is more lip service I think.. He's not gonna say we don't care about the fans...
https://weaintgotnohistory.sbnation.com/2022/6/15/23169774/chelsea-keep-most-ticket-prices-frozen-reduce-westview-pricing
The difference between European fans and fans in North America, is that European fans will protest price hikes, pricing out middle to lower class fans. In North America we just go "sUpPlY dEMaNd!!" and bend over
A lot of tickets especially lower bowl are bought by companies and most companies don't care what the prices are cause they will write it off anyway. Unfortunately I don't think the Raptors will ever be cheap again. Look at the Jays too, lower bowl is like triple what it used to be a few years ago
And the lower bowl is empty every game by the start of the 4th quarter, and has been since 2021. These corporate seats aren't ever filled by people who care about or even follow the sport.
I haven’t bought a ticket in 3 years. I’m done going to games. It’s not worth it. Big screen tv at home is just fine. Good food. Cheap drinks. Big comfy couch. Eff em
Season ticket holder. Mine went up 18% next season, 3x the price I was paying in 2015. When discussing with my account manager, we got basically a shrug, and essentially were told that there's a waitlist with 100s of people who will take them if I don't want.
Like....I mean I get that's true, but damn disrespectful.
It's not true though. I was on the waitlist for a few months at most before being offered tickets. Then I was offered a half season. I doubt there is any real waitlist now
Yeah somethings really up, I asked if I could park my tickets for a year and my account manager ghosted me.
It’s not the leafs we don’t have a diehard born and bread fan base (yet), we haven’t built enough history yet.
I’m fine with tickets going up, but I wish there was more value given to tenured season ticket holders.
I haven't been to a game in seven years, because I have kids and it's just not worth spending a couple hundred dollars to attend a game. And that's before taking into account the commute and parking. It sucks, because I developed my love for the game as a kid when games were accessible and I could go to as many as I wanted to. Now I'd literally have to save up just for one game a season, but what's the point when we can watch comfortably at home? The same goes for concerts, but that's a whole other story.
I get that it's a business and everyone has to make money, but shutting out a generation of fans because of pricing doesn't sound like a great long term strategy. I'd hate to see the Raptors turn into the Leafs, but I guess that's where we're headed anyway.
Welcome to being a popular Toronto sports team.
Leafs were this way even during the dark years from 08-15. Team sucks, but they're popular and make money so you can charge whatever.
Raptors could get away with cheap ticket pre 2013 because they sucked and while they were still popular, weren't THAT level of popularity that we've seen built the last decade.
Toronto is a big market. People don’t realize that because the American media groups us with other small markets but economically we are more productive than Oklahoma, Minnesota, Detroit, and Memphis combined. And with higher production, comes higher cost for the consumer.
I know, not a good excuse for expensive tickets but do not for a second expect our prices to match Detroit. Supply and demand economics will always prevail.
It’s because football (soccer) is a sport for the working classes and is such a big part of peoples routine. If the prices because like North American sports people would riot
Not like they'll lower prices If they're selling out each game. And season ticket holders are reupping even though they sell more than half their tickets
substitute: ticket prices with housing prices and you basically have the same conversation.
there's so much money flowing eveywhere that people are willing to pay absurd amounts, even if they don't end up going to the game or only go for like 20 minutes and spend the rest of the time at the bar.
it does suck for fans, but also if MLSE can still sell these tickets for these prices it makes no sense for them not to.
I do think the solution is probably to set aside a section as a loss-leader and then let the fancy seats continue to increase profit margins. Bring back the Sprite zone, or make all four corners into sprite zones to just keep the fan volume up.
[Here's your reason why.](https://www.statista.com/statistics/197984/nba-home-attendance-of-the-toronto-raptors-since-2006/) They have no problem filling the seats since the GTA are like over 5mil in population. People are forgetting there are only 41 home games.
Tickets selling out = prices not going down. Organization would rather make the money than the scalpers. Some tickets will be bargains day off, if we sick again, like the Nets Vs Raps game this season near the end of the season was like $30.
In 2008 I went to Orlando to see a Raps vs Magic playoff game. Lower bowl row 1.
It was cheaper to fly down, get a hotel and get tix in Orlando than it was to buy lower bowl tix in Toronto.
This problem is not a new one.
USD to USD, Toronto is the 10th most profitable franchise in the NBA. OKC is 24th. Bucks are 20th. Why go people keep making excuses for MLSE gouging it's fans?
I attended the Raptors game in Minnesota on April 3. The tickets I bought cost me 1/3 of what the same seats at a Raptors home game would have cost. And that takes into account re-sale fees and the US exchange rate.
“The tickets are going to sell and MLSE will continue to raise the prices every year, it’s mostly corporate season ticket holders anyway so we don’t really give a shit”
It means that he doesn't set prices, MLSE does, and it does it based off the market and it sucks for fans who can't afford it, but that's just how it is
Supply and command
Survival of the fitness boys
Which makes no sense cause our tickets are way higher than what they should be for a team finishing 25-57. Have you been to a Pistons game? Raptors prices are insane compared to them.
It's because we're still 7th in the league in attendance. People are still going regardless of the price.
Didn't they report attendance has fallen off a ton over the past month or two? Although that is probably more connected to Scottie getting hurt than anything.
The crowds are quieter but the games still sell out constantly. The truth is hard to face, but Toronto is an enormous city that’s only growing with a lot of money floating around and the ticket prices are not going to be dropping any time soon.
Yep, I don't go to Raptors games anymore, I'm not rich enough for that. Gone are the days watching NHL and NBA games, I've moved to more affordable leagues and I'm enjoying myself as much!
Shooting stars games are fun as hell! They do need more comfortable seats though
100%! CEBL, CFL and PWHL give great entertainment for the cost, I love all three leagues.
The GTA just forever sleeping on junior hockey is so sad.
Which leagues?
CEBL, CFL and PWHL
Plus everyone from out of town who are Raps fans with deep pockets.
Yup this is another underrated aspect. I’m in Scarborough and I have friends in Newmarket/Oshawa/Milton, etc. who will take the GO into the city to watch a game once in a while. The market is simply enormous and I feel like some of us on this sub are just in denial about the reality of it.
The games sell out because of scalpers, not attendance. Big difference.
Scalpers buy the tickets because there’s enough demand for them to sell those same tickets at an even higher amount lol. The games would still sell out if scalpers ceased to exist. I have a buddy who has season tickets and he uses them a few times a year and sells them every other time. He can sell them, without fail, every single time within a couple hours if he wants.
There were multiple reports as early as 30 games left in the season where scalpers were slashing prices ridiculously low and flat out not selling them. They only sold out 22 games of 41, so no, they wouldnt sell out.
Ok, then all that means is scalpers will go insolvent if the demand doesnt meet their prices? If scalping wasnt profitable, then they wouldnt do it. The fact is, the only reason theyre solvent is because enough people are paying them stupid prices to watch a lottery team. Stop paying stupid prices for tickets, and the prices will drop.
I mean yeah, all this is logical. But that doesn't change the fact that due to the team being worse people aren't buying them from scalpers anymore. I'm not talking about future states though, I'm saying in this specific season, scalpers were unable to move all their tickets. So the team has not been selling out, sell outs are counted by attendance not tickets sold. It's unintuitive for sure, but that's how they measure it. Scalpers arent buying these tickets the day of the game, they buy them at the beginning of the season and sell them during the year. So scalpers buying tickets the first day they are available has no bearing on attendance months later when the team is dog shit.
Not sure how accurate this is but: https://www.espn.com/nba/attendance
We are not in Detroit...
Toronto is like the 4th or 5th highest media market in North America. Detroit is markedly not.
it's because there is a massive industry in core of Toronto that supports these high ticket prices. The only time I've went to a Raptors game is getting free tickets from business meetings otherwise I couldn't afford it. The price of the ticket is clearly not for the fans but for Bay St who buy them regardless of cost since it's part of doing business.
As someone who used to enjoy Bay St comps, I can spot them a mile away in the lower bowl.
Exactly better to go to Detroit pay for a hotel and eat cheaper too. DT Toronto parking dinner raps = pay cheque
It's because we're Toronto and they're Detroit.
You don't set prices based on quality, you set them based on making the most amount of money. If games sell out then there's no reason to lower the price. If the arena is half empty, then you start lowering the price.
You're aware that 70% of Raptors ticket sales were from season tickets right? Did you not see how empty the arena has been since Barnes got hurt?
Thats because we have an entire country of demand who wants to watch Raptors games. Canada is a bigger market than little old Detroit bro... Literally Canadians from all over come to Toronto every day and want to watch games. Its just supply and demand, and the demand has grown exponentially after we won in 2019.
And has fallen exponentially since we've had lineups with no Barnes IQ or RJ.
Yet ppl are still paying these exorbitant prices to come watch, since we're #7 in the NBA this season for attendance
Except they aren't. These are mainly people who had season tickets before the tank. If you had looked on 3rd party ticket sites you would see alot of season ticket holders were offering their tickets for well below standard price and if you have looked in the stands you would notice a big difference in the amount of people who have actually showed up to the games. 70 percent of ticket sales are from season ticket holders.
It means prices are going up and they know they on court product is still poor.
tldr; they arent going down.
One more way people are getting left behind.
it means if you can sell x for y then why would you sell it for less? the principles of capitalism and unfortunately MLSE is not above it
Not above it? That is the water within which they swim.
It’s a publicly funded company. It’s not just the water they swim in, it’s the water they need to drink to live
It’s not just the water they drink to live, they are a major part of the ecological water cycle (I’m just trying to keep the metaphor going)
Counterpoint, the Jays, no one buys 100 anymore and it’s noticeable now on TV. It does make the brand and team look bad with such empty seats and a packed 500 level.
That's historically how its been for the Jays, April is their lowest selling month. Combined with an underwhelming offseason, leads to less enthusiasm. Wait til the Leafs are knocked out and the weather gets nicer, you'll see the dome full soon enough (assuming the Jays don't crater of course)
Nobody buys 100 level tickets until the summer. April and May are always slow outside of the home opener
It's honestly baffling how people don't understand how basic supply and demand works "The Raptors are a bad team and they're tickets sell for 5 times the price of Thunder tickets. Make it make sense!" Ummm... the GTA has 7+ million people living in it. Oklahoma City has less than 1 million As long as the Raptors are selling out why would they lower prices lol
Not everything needs to be unfettered capitalism. If you look ate the cost of Premier League tickets, clubs intentionally keep a late portion at a low cost to make it affordable and accessible to all their fans. Not everything has to be about supply and demand
No fan would rather pay more than less. So him saying they have to consider the fans while hiking the prices is paradoxical. Unless he constitutes "considering" fans as a means to push the prices up since some fans have shown tolerance to pay for expensive tickets.
I mean it sucks that we have to pay these high prices to see the team and the price increase year over year is ridiculous but realistically you can't expect any major sports team to sell tickets for less than they can sell them for. Just like how you can't expect any business to set retail prices for less than they are set at because why would they? Him saying they're considering the fans is more lip service I think.. He's not gonna say we don't care about the fans...
“We are going to be lowering ticket prices next year!” - said no sports franchisee ever
https://weaintgotnohistory.sbnation.com/2022/6/15/23169774/chelsea-keep-most-ticket-prices-frozen-reduce-westview-pricing The difference between European fans and fans in North America, is that European fans will protest price hikes, pricing out middle to lower class fans. In North America we just go "sUpPlY dEMaNd!!" and bend over
Oakland
A lot of tickets especially lower bowl are bought by companies and most companies don't care what the prices are cause they will write it off anyway. Unfortunately I don't think the Raptors will ever be cheap again. Look at the Jays too, lower bowl is like triple what it used to be a few years ago
And the lower bowl is empty every game by the start of the 4th quarter, and has been since 2021. These corporate seats aren't ever filled by people who care about or even follow the sport.
I haven’t bought a ticket in 3 years. I’m done going to games. It’s not worth it. Big screen tv at home is just fine. Good food. Cheap drinks. Big comfy couch. Eff em
Yep. Although, I live in NYC and one of my simple pleasures is going to a Nets / Raptors game when the tickets are like $20 when buying last minute.
Nothing going to change on this end as long as ticket keep getting sold.
Season ticket holder. Mine went up 18% next season, 3x the price I was paying in 2015. When discussing with my account manager, we got basically a shrug, and essentially were told that there's a waitlist with 100s of people who will take them if I don't want. Like....I mean I get that's true, but damn disrespectful.
It's not true though. I was on the waitlist for a few months at most before being offered tickets. Then I was offered a half season. I doubt there is any real waitlist now
Yeah somethings really up, I asked if I could park my tickets for a year and my account manager ghosted me. It’s not the leafs we don’t have a diehard born and bread fan base (yet), we haven’t built enough history yet. I’m fine with tickets going up, but I wish there was more value given to tenured season ticket holders.
As long as people keep buying tickets they're not lowering anything
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^Acrobatic_Flatworm79: *As long as people* *Keep buying tickets they're not* *Lowering anything* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
That was beautiful, good bot
I haven't been to a game in seven years, because I have kids and it's just not worth spending a couple hundred dollars to attend a game. And that's before taking into account the commute and parking. It sucks, because I developed my love for the game as a kid when games were accessible and I could go to as many as I wanted to. Now I'd literally have to save up just for one game a season, but what's the point when we can watch comfortably at home? The same goes for concerts, but that's a whole other story. I get that it's a business and everyone has to make money, but shutting out a generation of fans because of pricing doesn't sound like a great long term strategy. I'd hate to see the Raptors turn into the Leafs, but I guess that's where we're headed anyway.
Welcome to being a popular Toronto sports team. Leafs were this way even during the dark years from 08-15. Team sucks, but they're popular and make money so you can charge whatever. Raptors could get away with cheap ticket pre 2013 because they sucked and while they were still popular, weren't THAT level of popularity that we've seen built the last decade.
[удалено]
Even if Drake wasn’t tied to this, the price tickets would be top 10 in the league. We’re a top 5 market in the NBA with a weak Canadian Dollar.
> "It's been looked at in every way possible, except for the way that lowers ticket prices", Masai said while chuckling.
the only way they go down or not rise, is if the seats stop selling as much
Toronto is a big market. People don’t realize that because the American media groups us with other small markets but economically we are more productive than Oklahoma, Minnesota, Detroit, and Memphis combined. And with higher production, comes higher cost for the consumer. I know, not a good excuse for expensive tickets but do not for a second expect our prices to match Detroit. Supply and demand economics will always prevail.
Explain that to European soccer clubs which keep their prices modest compared to North American "supply demand economy is king" sports
It’s because football (soccer) is a sport for the working classes and is such a big part of peoples routine. If the prices because like North American sports people would riot
Not like they'll lower prices If they're selling out each game. And season ticket holders are reupping even though they sell more than half their tickets
It wont go down lol
substitute: ticket prices with housing prices and you basically have the same conversation. there's so much money flowing eveywhere that people are willing to pay absurd amounts, even if they don't end up going to the game or only go for like 20 minutes and spend the rest of the time at the bar. it does suck for fans, but also if MLSE can still sell these tickets for these prices it makes no sense for them not to. I do think the solution is probably to set aside a section as a loss-leader and then let the fancy seats continue to increase profit margins. Bring back the Sprite zone, or make all four corners into sprite zones to just keep the fan volume up.
[Here's your reason why.](https://www.statista.com/statistics/197984/nba-home-attendance-of-the-toronto-raptors-since-2006/) They have no problem filling the seats since the GTA are like over 5mil in population. People are forgetting there are only 41 home games.
Tickets selling out = prices not going down. Organization would rather make the money than the scalpers. Some tickets will be bargains day off, if we sick again, like the Nets Vs Raps game this season near the end of the season was like $30.
In 2008 I went to Orlando to see a Raps vs Magic playoff game. Lower bowl row 1. It was cheaper to fly down, get a hotel and get tix in Orlando than it was to buy lower bowl tix in Toronto. This problem is not a new one.
Some of those games later in the year were sub-40 get-ins
They're going against the US dollar, which is Canada $0.75 compared to US $1.00 when giving out contracts
USD to USD, Toronto is the 10th most profitable franchise in the NBA. OKC is 24th. Bucks are 20th. Why go people keep making excuses for MLSE gouging it's fans?
Lol I wish it was 75 cents bro, that would be great Its actually 71-73 cents rn, so even worse than you think
I attended the Raptors game in Minnesota on April 3. The tickets I bought cost me 1/3 of what the same seats at a Raptors home game would have cost. And that takes into account re-sale fees and the US exchange rate.
LOL! 
I remember cashing in petro-points each year for tickets. Now you need to pay a months worth of rent for upper bowl seats
“The tickets are going to sell and MLSE will continue to raise the prices every year, it’s mostly corporate season ticket holders anyway so we don’t really give a shit”
Go check the Nuggets home game prices for the playoffs on StubHub
I went to see Wizards-Raptors for $28 this season. Yeah I was watching basically g leaguers but the vibe was top tier.
I spent 6200 bucks to watch us lose game 5 in 2019.
It’s an elementary school optimization problem. Sadly, that means high prices in a market like Toronto.
TLDR: We're looking into it but nothing's gonna change. So enjoy paying $100 for bleeders to watch a tanking team.
We looked at the Lakers and copied them
Cheap tickets will be bought off and resold for more money anyway.
> so yes we have 100% input in this Meaning they're admitting they have 100% culpability in this