People want to see LeBron James, Kevin Love and the new look Cleveland Cavaliers. That’s demand.
There are a limited supply of tickets to see this team. Ergo…
At home and especially on the road the Cavaliers have become one of the most expensive and hottest selling tickets in town. And you wondered why Dan Gilbert swallowed his ego and apologized to LeBron for the letter (let alone the massive jump in his franchise value).
About the home games, the Cavaliers didn’t raise ticket prices (good on them) but they will now sell out every game, their CEO told CSNBC.“The appetite for Cavs anything has grown exponentially,” Cleveland Cavs CEO Len Komoroski told CNBC, adding that his team is working on giving fans as much connection as possible to the four-time MVP.
The Cavs’ season-ticket allotment of 12,000 seats sold out by 10 p.m. on July 11—less than half a day after James told Sports Illustrated, “I’m Coming Home…”
In the secondary ticket market, however, prices are rising across the board. At Stubhub, Cleveland Cavalier transactions are up 4,150 percent year over year, with an average ticket price of $184—almost $100 more than last season.
The demand for seats at Quicken Loan Arena is so high they are going to a lottery system for the single game seats.
And demand on the road is even higher.
According to secondary ticket marketer TickPick it will cost and average of $411.77 to get a seat for a Cavaliers game on the road, far and away the most of any team. Second place on the list goes to the Los Angeles Lakers and Kobe Bryant and you can get to see them for a “mere” $280.44.
(Rounding out the top five road draws according to TickPick are the Chicago Bulls at $261.46, the Oklahoma City Thunder at $249.09, then the New York Knicks at $247.66. In case your curious, the bottom five draws are the Denver Nuggets, Portland Trail Blazers, Phoenix Suns, Minnesota Timberwolves, and dead last is the Utah Jazz.)
On top of all that, you can be sure that the top selling jersey for the start of the season will be LeBron in the wine and gold.