Ticket prices are going up for the Toronto Raptors.
Despite the team coming off a down year and being in a rebuild, there will reportedly be about a 4 percent increase in ticket prices since last year, the Sports Business Journal reported.
While this may be upsetting for Raptors fans, it is the reality of business. Even though Toronto is coming off their worst season in over a decade this was to be expected.
Raptors president of basketball operations Masai Ujiri commented on the ticket prices going up and the factors behind it in his end-of-season press conference via the the Toronto Sun’s Ryan Wolstat:
“I think we have to look at market prices everywhere. We have to look at the NBA. I think we have to consider our market (one of the largest in North America and by far the biggest in Canada, not to mention the Raptors fans across the country who travel to attend games) and we have to consider the fans, too, in every way. So it’s been looked at in every single possible way that it can be looked at and studied as much as we can and considered, a lot of consideration is made into this.”
Ujiri also showed sympathy to the fans via Wolstat:
“So when these kinds of moves are made we feel, you feel for the for the fans sometimes, you know, but this is how business works and we have to find a way.”
The Raptors ranked seventh in the NBA in average home attendance this season despite their bottom-six record.
However, that was down from fourth overall a year earlier and sixth in 2021-22, per Wolstat.
Scottie Barnes has top-selling NBA jersey in Canada
Despite their poor 2023-24 season, the Raptors at least saw their face of the franchise Scottie Barnes become an All-Star.
Barnes has become the new fan favorite of the team and as a result he has the top-selling NBA jersey in Canada.
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