Fans may pay pretty penny to see Warriors games in S.F. arena

The Golden State Warriors boast that the $1 billion waterfront arena they want to build in San Francisco will be ?the model for a 21st century digital sports and entertainment center? ? one with the sizzle to attract the top free agent players and fans of the future. What they don't talk about is how much more tickets will cost fans at that $1 billion ?model? facility. less The Golden State Warriors boast that the $1 billion waterfront arena they want to build in San Francisco will be ?the model for a 21st century digital sports and entertainment center? ? one with the sizzle to ... more Photo: Andre Zandona, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Andre Zandona, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 5 Caption Close Fans may pay pretty penny to see Warriors games in S.F. arena 1 / 5 Back to Gallery

The Golden State Warriors boast that the $1 billion privately funded waterfront arena they want to build in San Francisco will be "the model for a 21st century digital sports and entertainment center," loaded with high-tech sizzle for fans and the cachet to attract top free agents.

What they don't talk about is how much tickets will cost at that $1 billion facility, or whether their longtime fans - who have sold out Oakland's Oracle Arena for 66 straight games - will be able to afford to watch pro basketball on the other side of the bay.

A team spokesman said it is "too soon" for the Warriors to know what prices will be, but the team will continue to offer tickets at many different price points if they move to the suggested site near the Bay Bridge.

However, based on the experiences of some NBA teams that have recently moved into new arenas in different cities over the past decade, Warriors fans may feel some sticker shock if the proposed stadium becomes a reality.

When the New Jersey Nets moved to Brooklyn in 2012 as part of a blockbuster development built with public and private funds, the average ticket price jumped 51 percent - not counting club seating, luxury boxes and floor seating - according to the sports business research firm Team Marketing Report. When the Seattle SuperSonics became the Thunder and moved to a new publicly owned arena in Oklahoma City in 2008, tickets bumped up 34 percent.

Price barely budged

When teams stayed in their home cities and moved into publicly owned facilities, like what happened in Memphis in 2004 and Orlando in 2010, the average ticket price barely budged. When the Houston Rockets moved downtown into a publicly owned arena in 2003, the average price of tickets jumped 9 percent, according to Team Marketing Report.

For the Warriors, increases in ticket prices are nothing new: the average price spiked 24 percent to $44.27 this year - the second-highest jump in the league, according to Team Marketing Report. It is the sixth time in 18 years the team has raised prices.

Rallying behind the local pro sports team has long been a unifying civic force that stretches across economic lines. But the question has some wondering whether the proposed San Francisco arena will become a playground for the wealthy in a city where growing fissures between the haves and have-nots have become a flash point.

"The concern is that when you gentrify these stadiums you are cutting out some of your future fan base - like the guy who brings his lunch pail to work and likes to bring his kids to a game once in a while," said Raymond Sauer, a professor of economics at Clemson University and the past president of the North American Association of Sports Economists.

Team spokesman Raymond Ridder said the team currently has tickets priced as low as $20. The Warriors offer tickets at a range of prices and, Ridder said, "We'll continue that practice in the future.

"It's too soon to know what our ticket options and pricing will be for basketball games," he said. "We'll know more about ticket options when our new home is actually built, and we begin filling seats."

However, Sauer believes that "the team has got a real good idea of how much tickets will be. They're just not making that known right now."

Sky-high payroll

Ridder attributed the current ticket price bump to the team's owners fulfilling their commitment to fielding a high-quality team - which meant raising payroll to an all-time high. The payoff has been that the long-moribund team reached the playoffs last year for only the second time in 19 seasons and is in the postseason hunt again this season.

Skyrocketing ticket prices at new sports facilities aren't limited to the NBA.

NFL ticket prices jumped 30 percent for teams that moved into new or upgraded stadiums in the same city between 1997-2003, according to a 2006 study co-authored by Victor Matheson, a professor of economics at College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts, and Robert Baade, a professor of economics at Lake Forest College in Illinois.

"This isn't just happening in Oakland and San Francisco," Matheson said. "All of these new facilities are designed to extract top dollar from those who can afford it."

Often the wealthiest fans absorb the brunt of the price increases. Matheson found that the price of one courtside seat - where celebs usually sit - can cost nearly as much as an entire upper deck section's worth of seats at Smoothie King Center, home to the New Orleans Pelicans.

The good news for those who want to continue to see live NBA basketball without taking out a bank loan "is that you're never going to be able to gouge the people in the upper deck - there's no real market for that," said Jon Greenberg executive editor of Team Marketing Report.

But that doesn't necessarily mean tickets are going to be affordable for many fans.

Roger Noll, a professor emeritus of economics at Stanford University, said the long-term trend in new sports facilities is "for ticket prices to increase more rapidly than income per family, so the composition of the audience at games has become older and richer for several decades.

"Teams seek new facilities in order to extract ever-higher prices from ever more elaborate venues," Noll said.

To keep fans interested in watching games in person - and charging higher prices - teams are trying to replicate the home-viewing experience with high-tech innovations.

At Brooklyn's $1 billion Barclays Center, fans can download an app and watch instant replays or a live game feed while they wait in line for food. The venue has been popular with other events, too, as the state-of-the-art facility surpassed Manhattan's Madison Square Garden as the highest grossing music venue in the country last year.

Long a top draw

The Warriors have long been one of the NBA's top draws, even when the team stank. This year, the team ranks sixth in the league in attendance, with an average of 19,596. Sports business analysts say the Warriors are likely to fill a new arena in San Francisco - even one with pricier tickets - given the number of wealthy individuals and corporations that have moved into the city in recent years.

In other words, Greenberg said, unless team management royally fumbles the franchise, there will be demand for tickets.

"When the market is there and the team is good," Greenberg said, "the tickets sell themselves."