Does it really cost minimum $419.50 (inc. $73/ticket) for a family to watch the Brooklyn Nets? Maybe not. But the cheap(er) seats are in the sky or on resale.

Remember when developer Bruce Ratner promised affordable $15 seats for the Brooklyn Nets?

Well, those days are long gone. That lasted one season, and they weren't that available anyway. As then-arena/team CEO Brett Yormark put it, 'we are a business."

So, how many of those endearing 10-year-old (purported) fans--with syntax signaling a range of classes-- featured in the Brooklyn Nets' manipulative anniversary video are going to games today?

Well, the ones with money might be going on their family's dollar. The ones without might be going only if and when their school or organization gets cheap seats or giveaways.

In other words, in the era of Kyrie and KD, Nets tickets are as expensive as the team can algorithmically calculate, and it's not a venue for the masses.

After all, as tweeted yesterday, citing Bookies.com, the cost for a four-person family to see the Nets, with refreshments, is purportedly $419.50. That said, not everyone will spend $57.50 on parking, and some might spend, instead of $8.20 on a soda, a little less on water. 

#BrooklynNets at # 6 in league.
Family of 4 = $419.50
and that's w/cheapest ticket ($290.68 = $72.67 x 4, likely w/fees)
2 beers $25.92 ($12.96)
2 20-oz sodas $16.40 ($8.20)
4 hot dogs $29 ($7.25)
Parking $57.50? Some get it on street. Some take public transit to #BarclaysCenter https://t.co/g3bEF2HTy1

— Norman Oder (@AYReport) October 18, 2022

Looking more closely

Are Nets' cheap tickets really $72.67 each? Here's how Bookies.com explains its math:

We took the cheapest available tickets (4) for home games in December and January, only going through official sources and avoiding the secondary market (Ticketmaster standard tickets was the most common team partner). Those tickets were then averaged out for one cost. The tickets used for the formula were for those available as of Oct. 12, 2022.

Finding the cheapest available ticket varies wildly depending on the opponent. Teams that charge $25 for an upper-level view when the Kings come to town will charge well over $100 for the same cushion when it’s Lakers Night.

Every team jacked Lakers games to unique heights. To make this comparison a little more even, we eliminated all Lakers road games from the equation. If your family of four is on a budget, forget seeing LeBron James.

(Emphasis added)

In other words, they didn't choose the cheapest single-game tickets but rather the cheapest tickets for multiple games, then averaged them out.

I won't duplicate that, but I can look at the nine-game "Starter" mini-plan, which includes games from November through February.

As shown in the screenshot at right, there are ticket packages for $440, including fees, which works out to nearly $49 per ticket.

Those cheap seats, of course, are in the highly-pitched upper deck, which most find vertiginous and some find unnerving.

Cheap secondary tickets

Meanwhile, as shown below, the SeatGeek website indicates that there are tickets for games against some lesser teams priced below $30--at least before the $10/ticket service fee (!) is added.

Then again, my quick perusal showed the cheap seats were on the secondary market (via SeatGeek), which means that season ticket holders (or ticket package holders) were re-selling them. 

So that doesn't qualify under the Bookies.com schema--but it does mean that families looking for a (relative) bargain--compared to both more coveted games and especially the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden--can spend less.