Kobe Bryant's retirement leads 76ers, Wizards to boost ticket prices
The Philadelphia 76ers may have tied for the longest season-opening losing streak in NBA history, but the club has found a reason to boost ticket prices.
Kobe Bryant.
The Los Angeles Lakers guard announced Sunday that this will be his last season — and his team’s first road game since that declaration is in Philly on Tuesday night. The face value for the cheapest tickets at the Wells Fargo Center jumped to $38, nearly triple the lowest-priced seat ($14) for Saturday's game against the Denver Nuggets.
“As is customary with most professional sports teams, we tier individual ticket prices based on the schedule,” 76ers Chief Revenue Officer Chris Heck told USA TODAY Sports in an email. “When Kobe Bryant announced his pending retirement and thus his final visit to Philadelphia on Sunday afternoon, we shifted the Lakers game into ‘Tier A’ pricing. The pricing adjustment applies to individual and group tickets.”
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Face value for the most expensive seats for Tuesday’s game go for $344 vs. $145 for Saturday's game against Nuggets.
Season-ticket and mini-plan holders are not impacted by the price adjustment, Heck said. Despite the price increase both by 76ers and on the secondary market as USA TODAY Sports reported previously, Heck said only standing-room only seats remain.
“This is going to be a exciting night, as we also pay tribute to Moses Malone, one of the greatest to ever play the game and a true Philadelphia sports icon,” Heck said.
The Wizards host the Lakers on Wednesday and similarly boosted ticket prices after Bryant’s announcement. The least-expensive ticket offered by the Wizards for Bryant’s last trip to Washington’s Verizon Center is $66, more than double the price of another Wednesday night game this month (the Memphis Grizzlies on Dec. 23).
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"We use dynamic pricing for all individual game tickets, as is the common practice for many professional and collegiate teams," Wizards senior vice president for communications Kurt Kehl told USA TODAY Sports. "In respect to Wednesday, the Lakers game always is priced higher than an average game based simply on demand. That’s probably the case in most NBA cities too. Ticket pricing did increase Monday morning, and that was based on inventory. As you might imagine, fans went online Sunday evening to purchase tickets to Wednesday’s game, thus reducing the inventory of tickets on Monday.
"Like any game, we will continue to monitor market conditions and inventory and make adjustments."
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