Success proves costly for Warriors, ticket holders
By Geoff Lepper
STAFF WRITER
Article Launched: 04/16/2008
OAKLAND -- Ever since Don Nelson arrived in August 2006 to resume his
duties
as Warriors coach, the team has gotten great value out of Andris Biedrins
and Monta Ellis, receiving production worth far more than the combined
$3.4
million that pair is being paid this season.
That bargain-basement era will reach an end this evening with the
Warriors'
regular-season finale against the Seattle SuperSonics -- and it's not just
on the part of Biedrins and Ellis, who will be restricted free agents as
of
July 1.
With at least seven and as many as nine players possibly eligible for free
agency, the team has long known that this will be a summer of tremendous
im****t -- both on the court and in the pocketbook. And in a move perhaps
made in response to those bills coming due, the team seems to have
instituted without fanfare its third season-ticket price increase in the
last five years.
Unlike at the end of the 2003-04 and 2005-06 seasons, when the Warriors
announced ticket hikes, the team has stayed silent on the subject this
year.
Golden State president Robert Rowell declined through a spokesman to
comment
on the situation.
But of the more than 10 season-ticket holders contacted by the Times for
this story, not one has seen their prices drop for 2008-09. Price
increases
for those fans have ranged from 2.4 percent to 50 percent for one
upper-level seat.
Given the success of the team last season, when it went 42-40 and made the
playoffs after a 12-season drought, some customers were bracing for such a
jump.
"Am I upset about the rising season ticket prices? No, it's expected,"
said
season-ticket holder Jim Del Favero, who runs the popular
warriorsworld.net
Web site. "There is just no competition for the NBA in the Bay Area, now
that the Warriors are a hot ticket, they can raise prices."
The success of the team makes it easier for season-ticket holders to
stomach
an increase, because they're still able to offload tickets for games they
can't attend rather than having to just eat the cost. The Warriors'
partner****p with Ticketmaster has made reselling unused seats even easier.
Now, the question is how far the Warriors will go to keep this group
together. Golden State has had a history in recent years of spending on
players, lavished hundreds of millions of dollars to bring in or keep Mike
Dunleavy, Troy Murphy, Jason Richardson, Derek Fisher and Adonal Foyle.
But the club has shed all those contracts since Nelson came in, and toed
the
line of cost-effectiveness when it came to free-agent forwards Mickael
Pietrus and Matt Barnes last summer.
The Warriors' final salary outlay for this season should clock in just
above
$60 million, which is well below the luxury-tax threshold of $67.9
million.
But if Biedrins and Ellis sign long-term deals and return, they could
easily
take in a combined $15 million next season.
Last summer, Biedrins sought an extension from the team in the
neighborhood
of Chris Kaman's deal with the Los Angeles Clippers -- one worth more than
$10 million annually. And Ellis could command a huge number from
star-starved -- and cap-healthy -- Memphis, which is only about three
hours
from his Mississippi hometown.
Having to pay those kind of numbers would put the Warriors in serious
danger
of either having to pay the NBA's luxury tax for the first time or shed
other contracts in much the way they traded Richardson (2007-08 salary:
$10.0 million) for rookie Brandan Wright ($2.3 million). But not paying
puts
them in a different danger: That of turning off their fan base.
"I own a business, and you've got to make hay while the sun ****nes, that's
that old cliché," said Tony Schmoll, a season-ticket holder from Santa
Rosa
with his own insurance firm. "But, if you get too greedy, and say, 'Well,
I'm not going to pay these guys the money,' and they leave, then there's
people like me who go, 'You know what? I don't know that I want to keep
those tickets.' "
Schmoll said he's discontinued his 49ers season-tickets because of that
franchise's "dysfunction," and he's not the only one who's watching what
the
Warriors do with their young stars.
"We'll see what happens in the offseason," said Warriors captain Stephen
Jackson, one of few players under contract for 2008-09. "I just hope they
take care of the young fellas, Monta and (Biedrins). They've been so
professional. They're future stars in this league."
Contact Geoff Lepper at glepper@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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