Ticket Demand, Anticipation Grows As LeBron Closes In On Kareem

Courtside seats 166 and 167 at the arena where the Los Angeles Lakers play their home games are as good as it gets.

The folks occupying these chairs when LeBron James breaks Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s NBA scoring record will have a close look, with their feet on the hardwood where the story-making shot happens.

The story, in this case, comes at a cost.

On Monday, those seats could have been available for Tuesday’s game against the Oklahoma City Thunder for $75,000 each. Total price for the two seats with Ticketmaster fees: $181,500. And there’s no guarantee James will even break the record on Tuesday; In fact, at his current goal-scoring pace, he would be just short of the mark by the end of the Thunder game.

That’s why those same seats are even more expensive Thursday for the Lakers’ next game against the Milwaukee Bucks — the two teams Abdul-Jabbar played for during his Hall of Famer career. For this game: $242,000 including fees. But history suggests prices will fall; Industry experts have long said that extravagantly priced tickets rarely reach the huge numbers listed.

But don’t be fooled. The best seats will still cost a lot.

“For Thursday’s game, we sold a pair of tickets, seats, for $24,000 per ticket, for a total of $48,000,” said Kyle Zorn, brand manager at online ticket marketplace TickPick. “I have a feeling people are betting on history that he can do it against Kareem’s former team, but he could easily score 36 points on Tuesday and then the market for Thursday’s game could completely collapse.”

Whenever the record falls – maybe Tuesday, maybe Thursday, and it’s doubtful the hunt will go beyond that unless James isn’t playing for some reason – it becomes an event.

The NBA has already changed the national television schedule for Tuesday, rearranging things to put that night’s Lakers-Thunder game in second place on the usual TNT doubleheader – with Commissioner Adam Silver saying the league wants to make sure she gets as many eyes on the record-breaking moment as possible.

The Lakers will play the Bucks again on TNT on Thursday, and expect another national television audience on Saturday when they visit Golden State on ABC. These were previously planned this way, no rearranging was required.

Silver said the NBA will pay tribute if James surpasses Abdul-Jabbar’s total score of 38,387, with likely a bigger celebration of the record at All-Star Weekend in Salt Lake City later this month.

“There’s no doubt we’re going to finish this game and make sure we capture the ball, the basket and the uniform for history,” Silver said. “We’re going to stop and make sure we’ve done our job as archivists of the NBA. At the same time, there’s this balance that they’re going to be playing against a team that’s keen to win that night and not get distracted. Most likely we will do something at the moment.”

Common sense will probably prevail: If, for example, James gets the record in a tight game with a minute left, the NBA will probably not interrupt the process with a longer break. If it happens early, a brief game stoppage wouldn’t be unprecedented.

But for those who want to see it all in person, whether from pitchside seats or the upper levels of the arena, it will still cost a pretty penny.

On Monday, and with the market likely to fluctuate into game time, Zorn said the cheapest ticket price for Tuesday’s game was about $176 — about half what it was a week ago, which is what most people are guessing That record falls against the Bucks – and $796 for Thursday’s game.

“It’s weird how the prices for Tuesday’s game dropped so much, like it’s like a guarantee he’ll break it on Thursday,” Zorn said.

Many price points are likely to be out of reach for most fans. On the other hand, if there’s a Thunder fan in LA who really wants to see their team, maybe they should just wait for March 24th. The Thunder will be back tonight.

Cheapest ticket at the moment for this game – around $60.

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