Part of me feels sorry for these people who spent tons of money essentially betting on high-priced tickets to see LeBron James break his record during a Thursday game, only to have James break the record on Tuesday.
John Larson lives in Utah, but he really wanted to be in Los Angeles to watch LeBron James make history.
Mr. Larson, 54 years old, and his 24-year-old son, Adam, had studied Mr. James’s stats and took a gamble that this week the NBA star would break the league’s all-time scoring record.
Based on their math, they thought Mr. James would make history on Thursday, when his team, the Los Angeles Lakers, are set to play the Milwaukee Bucks at home. The Larsons bought nosebleed seats for sky-high prices: $333 each, double what similar seats would cost come Wednesday. They also booked a hotel and flights to travel on game day from Utah to Los Angeles.
But on Tuesday, Mr. Larson watched from his home in South Jordan, Utah—and not a noisy arena—as Mr. James netted his 38,388th point, breaking a scoring record Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had held for nearly four decades, in a game against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
“What the heck?” thought Mr. Larson, who supervises a team selling vacation packages for an airline. “I was cringing with every shot that he made.”
Mr. Larson still plans to go to the game Thursday, he said, having paid so much for tickets and travel. He and other basketball fans had spent big money for the chance to see Mr. James break the record.
Ticket prices for upcoming Lakers games soared this week as word spread that Mr. James was on track to break the record. Some resellers listed their courtside seats for $100,000, while normally affordable seats in the rafters were priced at several hundred dollars.
If you have $100,000 to stupidly burn on a basketball game, I doubt this bit of bad luck will matter much in the long run. Like I said, I sort of feel sorry for these suckers. Then again, sorta not.
I really can’t think of anything (in terms of entertainment) I love so much that I would burn $100,000 on it if I had that kind of money. In a world full of starving people, plopping $100,000 into the pockets of LeBron James (or any sports figure), their team and their league makes no sense to me.
LeBron James is reportedly worth $1 billion dollars.
Weird priorities run rampant in this allegedly Christian country.
