76ers ownership and Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin purchase 2,000 Game 6 tickets for Philadelphians
Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images
After Knicks fans made the short travel down to Philadelphia, taking over the Wells Fargo Center for Games 3 and 4, embarrassing the city, the 76ers’ ownership is stepping up to the plate.
The Sixers announced that their owners — Josh Harris, David Blitzer, and David Adelman — and Fanatics CEO and former co-owner Michael Rubin, are teaming up to purchase more than 2,000 Game 6 tickets for first responders, healthcare professionals, community groups, and other local Philadelphia-based organizations to “harness the intensity and excitement for tomorrow’s crucial showdown with the New York Knicks.”
This will ensure that instead of hundreds of thousands of Knicks fans who took advantage of the secondary market previously, it will be limited for Game 6 on Thursday night. There will still be a lot, I am sure, but not as many losers in our building.
This is a great move by the owners, who have caught a lot of heat the past week or so.
A lot of people were not pleased with the ticket situation for the playoffs. The Knicks fans bring a lot of energy, and since the get-in prices are a heck of a lot lower in Philadelphia than in New York, it is hard to blame them for taking advantage and traveling south to see their team, paying much less than they would at Madison Square Garden.
Of course, buying 2,000 tickets does not solve the problem of the season ticket holders cashing in on their lack of faith in the team. It is pretty pathetic, honestly.
Reality is that you have a seven-seed facing elimination where their star, Joel Embiid, has pretty much a non-functioning left leg, Bell’s Palsy which leads to half a paralyzed face, and a migraine.
Can the Sixers really come back and win this thing? They, especially Tyrese Maxey, fought their behinds off in Game 5 in Manhatten to keep it alive. That should certainly add some hope, you would think.
According to Crossing Broad, “The Sixers used to have the largest season ticket holder base in the NBA. That number actually shrunk this year… When the playoffs come around, the Sixers do a presale where STH get the first crack, then you go through preferred lists before the remaining inventory is released to the general public… You can indeed limit purchases to certain zip codes, but that’s hard to do in a situation like this one, where there’s a ton of overlap between the New York and Philadelphia markets.”
So, I mean, it is tough. But the Sixers ownership is doing the right thing, and rewarding the right people — the hard-working citizens that keep Philly moving.
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