Basketball Tickets
The NBA’s 75th anniversary season kicked off last October and reached a climactic conclusion in April of 2022 with the National Basketball League (NBA) playoffs.
It’s been a turbulent season for all sports across the country, and the NBA will return to some much-anticipated normalcy.
Thankfully, October saw the resumption of the standard 82-game regular season. Fixtures for the year were announced last week. The NBA was delighted to announce that they were expecting capacity crowds at each match this season.
Celebrating its diamond jubilee, the NBA announced that the league schedule would feature multiple classic matchups. This is to celebrate some of the most historic matchups, players and coaches who have helped define the National Basketball League over the past 75 years.
That included five days of matches between the franchises’ oldest basketball teams, the Knicks, the Golden State Warriors and the Boston Celtics, which took place in December.
2023 NBA Season
Thrills, spills, dunks and jumps have been back in the stadiums. However, if you plan on attending a game, particularly any rivalries, derbies, or big matchups, you should plan ahead to secure your tickets early.
These are the key dates for the 2023 NBA season:
- March 28: 2023 G League Playoffs start.
- April 11-14: 2023 Play-In Tournament.
- April 15: 2023 NBA Playoffs start.
- May 16: 2023 Draft Lottery.
- June 1: NBA Finals start.
- June 22: 2023 NBA Draft.
Average attendances to last season’s games were between 3,000 to 3,500 spectators, and with many fans missing out on catching a game, basketball tickets for this season’s matches were going to be like gold dust.
Where to Secure Your Basketball Tickets
The best and most secure place to get NBA tickets is on the NBA website. Here you will be directed to the individual team you are looking to purchase your tickets for, the game you are hoping to see and the seats you are looking to sit in.
It’s also wise to purchase a membership for your chosen club. It can help you secure priority access to jump to the front of the ticketing queue. But if you are just looking for single-game tickets, Ticketmaster’s NBA ticketing page is perhaps the easiest and most secure website to purchase tickets from. Often tickets will not come out on their pages until a specific time, so it is best to keep an eye on their site for when tickets are being released.
Even though tickets were set to be in high demand this season, we did not expect prices to change. Average ticket prices were expected to stay at around $94 for most regular-season matches. But, of course, those prices depend on when you bought the tickets; leave it too late, and the cost can go up. Or if you looked to go to one of the bigger derbies (for example, the Bulls vs. Knicks game on October 29) you might have paid upwards of $200.
That price will also fluctuate depending on the seats you buy. It goes without saying that the closer you are to the court, the more money you pay for your tickets. Courtside tickets are perhaps the hardest tickets to get in the ground. The NBA is the only sport in the world that will practically let its spectators sit on the playing surface without obstruction, and this is where you will expect to find the celebrities and A-Listers.
That also means courtside ticket prices skyrocket from a standard stadium seat. So you can expect to pay anywhere from $3,000 to $110,000 for a courtside seat in the finals.
But what if you have got a ticket and cannot attend the game? That means you need to resell your ticket.
Thousands of tickets go to waste annually because fans do not realize they can sell their unwanted tickets online at TicketMaster’s Resale Marketplace. Here supporters can offload tickets to other real fans wanting to go to the match via a secure online platform.
How This Season Compared to the Last
The COVID-19 pandemic caused massive disruption worldwide and forced the NBA to take drastic measures to reduce the number of games played by each team from 82 to 72.
Teams were also required to spend a lot of time away from their home state, with the Toronto Raptors playing the majority of their home games in Florida.
The regular season had a much more normal look, with each team facing opponents in its division four times each. They then competed against six other oppositions from the other two divisions in their conference four times and played the remaining four teams in their conference three times. Then, each team finally played all the teams in the other conference twice.
This is how the NBA season is structured:
- Divisional matches: Each team will play all opponents in its division four times each (16 games).
- Intra-conference matches: Each team will play six opponents three times across the remaining two divisions in its conference (24 games). Each team will then play the remaining four teams in the conference three times each (12 games).
- Inter-conference matches: Each team will play the remaining teams in the opposite conference two times (30 games).
- NBA finals: 16 teams play off in a 2-2-1-1-1 format. The highest-seeded sides play against the lowest-seeded sides in their division for divisional titles. The winners progress into the conference finals, and the subsequent winners advance to the NBA finals.
What About the NCAA College Basketball?
The NBA season is much longer than the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) college basketball season, which hosts between 30 and 35 matches over four months. Interestingly, in the past, college basketball games have hosted just as many spectators as NBA games. In the 2019 to 2020 season, Sycarous University hosted the largest crowd attendance at their Carrier Dome in New York state, totaling 21,704 spectators for one game. That’s nearly the same capacity as you would find at Madison Square Gardens, making the atmosphere just as good, if not better, than an NBA match!
NBA tickets are hot property, but do not fret if you cannot catch a game; college basketball has just as much quality, flair and excitement on offer. Head over to SeatGeek to buy your college basketball tickets today!