TORONTO — Tickets can still be had for this week’s NBA all-star festivities in Toronto. But prepared to pay a stiff price.
The cheapest ticket to Sunday’s 65th annual all-star game as of Wednesday evening was US$649 on StubHub, with some 300-level tickets going for upwards of $775 (all figures in U.S. dollars). Lower bowl tickets run as high as US$6,000, while a single courtside seat will set you back as much as US$27,000.
There were 399 tickets available on StubHub for Sunday’s game as of 6 p.m. ET.
The ticket sale structure provoked some griping from Raptors season-ticket holders, who were given the opportunity to purchase tickets for one of either Sunday’s game itself, the All-Star Saturday Night Skills Competition, or Friday’s Rising Stars Challenge or NBA All-Star Celebrity Game.
"It’s an NBA event hosted in our building, so I think there was a gap in expectation that all of our season seat-holders would get their specific seats," said Dave Hopkinson, the chief commercial officer for Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Ltd. "The reality is, that’s not the case. What we did do is we worked very hard with the NBA and broke ticket packages up — Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday, broke up suites… so we were able to offer every single one of our season seat-holders the opportunity to buy something at all-star.
"So they didn’t get their seat, but they all got the opportunity to buy something. And the response was overwhelmingly positive. I’m not saying we didn’t have a couple of difficult conversations. But when people understand, it’s an NBA event that comes around every 20 years, they were just happy to be at it."
The average resale value for Sunday’s, according to SeatGeek, is US$1,037, while Saturday night’s skills events, featuring the dunk contest and three-point shootout is $726.
SeatGeek says this year’s all-star event is the eighth most expensive NBA event they’d seen since they started tracking the secondary market in 2010. The only events that topped it were four NBA final games from 2015, a final game in 2010, and the all-star games in Los Angeles and last year in New York.
Tickets for Saturday and Sunday’s all-star events are also by far the most expensive events tracked by SeatGeek in the Toronto area, topping other events such as Toronto Maple Leafs playoff games and the world junior hockey championships.
The only events in Canada with higher average resale prices since 2010, according to SeatGeek, were Games 5 and 7 of the 2011 Stanley Cup in Vancouver.
The average price of a Raptors ticket this season is $83.
