Celtics say season ticket sales still strong, but are they misleading?

From a Boston Globe article today by Baxter Holmes:

According to Celtics president Rich Gotham, about 90 percent of the team’s season-ticket base from last season has re-upped for next season. “That number is a really strong number,” Gotham said Wednesday. “I think most teams in the NBA would kill for that kind of number.” That number is considered to be above the league average for season-ticket retention rate, which has been trending upward in recent years and, at the moment, is generally in the low- to mid-80s for most NBA teams. The Celtics have had higher retention rates, Gotham noted. “In these past six years, we’ve had years where we were 95 percent and above, so we’re a little bit down,” he said. “But the good news is the new season-ticket sale demand has been comparable to the past few offseasons.” Gotham did note that the window for the majority of season ticket-holders to renew was closed by the end of June.

I am a season ticket holder myself, and while I'm sure the PR information Gotham is putting out is technically accurate, I have to say it feels a little misleading.  Every season I've been asked to re-up for the following year well before the playoffs even started, let alone "the end of June."  This past year my renewal deadline (with an 8% price increase) was February 28th:


On 2/28 the Celtics were 30-27, had just won a very impressive 10 of 14 games since Rajon Rondo's season ending injury, and were fresh off what Doc Rivers called "the best win of the year."  Now I'm not complaining, I'm happy to still have my tickets; but I definitely had a different outlook towards 2013-2014 back in February than I did last month.

Also from Holmes' article:

Perhaps more impressively, Gotham said that no Celtics season ticket-holders have requested to cancel for the upcoming season. “You always sort of anticipate that if someone’s favorite player gets traded, they might say, ‘Well, this isn’t what I wanted and I want to get out of my tickets,’ ” he said. “That hasn’t occurred. And that’s been great.”

And while I have no intentions of asking for my money back (although at this point the price increase does seem a bit obnoxious), and take no issue with Holmes' coverage of the story, some other fans in his twitter feed have different opinions:


Here's a link to the Celtics official season ticket policies and procedures, which includes this section:



Follow Mark on twitter @LucidSportsFan