Lockout Limbo: The Fan
by Jackie MacMullan and Phil Taylor
Posted: Wed July 14, 1998
 Section 314, row 10, seats 3 through 6 at Chicago's United
Center might be called the cheap seats if there were such things
in the NBA. That's where Leslie Wright and his buddies sit, high
above the floor in the upper deck. The eight friends share four
season tickets, which in 1998-99 will cost $1,260 each, or $28
per seat per game (up from $25 per seat per game last season),
for four preseason and 41 regular-season games. So each of the
friends will get to attend half of the Bulls' home schedule at a
cost of $630. They will, that is, if their full payment of
$5,040 is in the team's offices on or before Wednesday, July 22.
"If it's not there by 5 p.m. that day, we're bounced," says
Wright, a 39-year-old architect. "It's put up the cash or hit
the bricks."
It doesn't matter that Chicago fans don't know whether Michael
Jordan and Scottie Pippen will return next season. It doesn't matter
that they don't even know if there will be a next season. One
thing that hasn't been put on hold during the lockout is the
payment schedule for season-ticket holders, many of whom have to
pay the entire cost of their tickets or put down a deposit
despite the work stoppage. In essence they have to buy before
they know the quality of the product—or if and when it will be
delivered. (Their money will be refunded, eventually, for games
that aren't played.)
"It's not fair at all that we have to pay before the lockout
ends, but we're going to do it, we're going to renew," Wright
says. "I almost dropped out a year ago, when nobody knew whether
they were going to break up the team or not, but I couldn't do
it. The bottom line is, I'm a basketball fan."
The owners and the players can only hope that most of the public
is as faithful as Wright, who has been spending money on Bulls
tickets for the last 14 years. "When you've been coming to games
that long, it's not easy to just walk away from it," he says.
But Wright's enthusiasm is eroding in small ways. This is the
first off-season in which he hasn't bought armloads of
merchandise to commemorate a Bulls championship—no sweats, no
caps, no pins. He has also decided that he won't pay if there is
another off-season of uncertainty. "If the situation next year
is anything like this year, I'm out, I'm not coming back," he
says. Loyalty has its limits. Negotiators on both sides might
want to take that thought with them to the bargaining table.
Issue date: July 20, 1998
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