Moments before tipoff, resale tickets for Cleveland's matchup with the Brooklyn Nets were going for as little as $2 on owner Dan Gilbert's new ticket selling platform "Flash Seats." Cleveland may boast a positive attendance record of 19,432 tickets sold through two games, but that doesn't reflect how many seats were actually filled at the onset of the contest.
The ticket resale industry for live events is quietly sucking the fun out of professional sports, but on the positive, it has given Regular Joe's the opportunity to gain Regular admission at an affordable cut-rate. The two major sporting franchises that share the Little Caesar's Arena in Detroit have resorted to changing the color of the seats from an eye-popping white to a more unassuming color in order to mask poor ticket sales.
Neither the Brooklyn Nets nor the Cleveland Cavaliers (post-LeBron) are expected to draw big crowds anytime soon. The Brooklyn Nets shot their load when they mortgaged a decade's worth of first round draft picks on the aging tandem of Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Deron Williams, and Joe Johnson, and have yet to recover. The Cleveland Cavaliers, on the other hand, have handed the reins to point guard Colin Sexton. For the time being, the 2018 lottery pick is hovering around the 25 minute-mark in terms of usage, with plenty of room to bloom.