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		The average fan has no chance to buy a ticket at the NBA Finals By Scary Barry June 16, 2008

	BOSTON--Try walking around Bean Town looking under every rock for a ticket to the NBA Finals. Some fans might think you’re out of your mind and point you in the direction of where Paul Revere was buried. Or the Yard, Fenway Park, that place is sold out too but at least you can get scalped there. No, there are no takers or givers at the NBA Finals standing outside in the rather warm greater Boston area. No hope in Copely Place, the scene of where the team hotel for the Los Angeles Lakers is at. Sure you can always go on line and type with your fingers crossed to see if someone has a ticket for sale but be prepared if your name isn't Jack Nicholson or Senator Ted Kennedy, you’re in for a poke in the eye because the sticker shock on the best seat in the house ranges for up to $15,000 courtside just for a chance to look at Kobe's beads of sweat and to sit maybe a few rows from the Joker from Batman. But the real joke is on the fan who drops that $15,000 grand for that best seat in the house at the Fleet Center. People just rub their temples or just take a pass on the price tag of buying a ticket at Fleet. This has been the best three on one basketball that money can buy in this Final series that has now reached six games, but there is no way no one is going to cough up $15,000 for the best seat in the house. Well there are some, but you got to be in that "club" that comedian George Carlin speaks of when doing his bit on the elite. That counts out about 98% of the driving and non-driving population. That other 2% are sitting in the Finals looking and tearing the perforated lines in their ticket strips that they bought for the Finals. For regular Joe's who aren't working a second job, they can watch the NBA Finals on broadcast TV, but the real question is whether the economy and high prices have made watching a game live for the regular fans impossible. In Los Angeles at the Staples Center, the Celtics are playing the Lakers and the stands and court side seats are filled with movie stars, politicians, and icons from every industry. But where does that leave the fans, the average fans, the best seat in the house is $15,000 and the nose bleeds are $450. Add the cost of food and the cost of gas; what chances does a person have to go see these games? Maybe that’s the point; the NBA became a league for the rich and the elite to watch, what happened to the regular fan? These people who idolize these players from the kids in the ghetto who idolize these stars, it's all non-sense, and it might as well be a Mars shot when the regular fan wants to go to the game. So what's the future of the NBA? Those rich people can afford anything. So it still gets back to the question, can the average hourly fan afford to go to the NBA Finals? Not really, those folks are going to be working that second and third job. Because of the increase in the price in gas, the price of food, so really reporting on the NBA is going to become irrelevant, except for people who have a vested interest in the business side of the game itself. Scary Barry appears on Sportstalk and does sports commentary on occasion for Sportstalk Radio.