Knicks, Lakers among NBA’s worst fan pocketbook deals in 2021-22; where does your team rank in value?

The NBA’s two largest-market teams this season were the worst pocketbook deals for fans who wanted to see a team contending for the playoffs and a title.

In the newest Fan Cost Index (FCI) that measures costs such as tickets and concessions for a family of four to attend a regular-season game (details below), the New York Knicks retained their perch as the league’s most expensive team for the 12th consecutive season.

How much did it cost for four to attend a game at Madison Square Garden to watch the Knicks finish 37-45? A whopping $936.72 thanks to an average non-premium ticket average cost of $186.23. That’s some Midtown Manhattan market pricing premium, bing bong! Still, they averaged 18,621 fans per game this season, eighth best in the NBA per ESPN’s attendance tracking.

The Los Angeles Lakers ranked as the third-priciest FCI at $711.46. Just a couple of seasons removed from their last NBA title, the Lakers may have been the worst deal for fans in 2021-22 after finishing 33-49 and failing to earn a Play-In Tournament bid after a season marred by injuries and dysfunction. And this was a season in which LeBron James averaged a career-best 30.3 points per game at age 37.

It certainly can be argued that seeing James play is worth the price of admission (and beer, parking, etc.), but if the expectation is winning and a run at another title, this season was a bummer. At newly renamed Crypto.com Arena, the Lakers averaged 18,649 fans per game this season, one spot ahead of the Knicks.

Between the Knicks and Lakers are the Golden State Warriors at $740.08. That’s not cheap, but the Bay Area is another expensive market, and the team, which finished 53-29, is in the Western Conference semifinals in pursuit of its sixth finals berth in the past eight seasons.

The cheapest FCI this season was $237.55 for the Charlotte Hornets. They’ve been at the bottom for 10 consecutive seasons. Though the Hornets were just over .500 this season, fans in Charlotte at least got to watch LaMelo Ball help the club to the Play-In Tournament.

Cheapest ticket? Again, the Michael Jordan-owned Hornets at $32.82. There’s a $700 FCI difference between the Knicks and Hornets, and a $153 gap in average ticket prices. Still, Charlotte’s 15,541 per-game attendance average ranked 24th among the league’s 30 teams.

The average NBA FCI this season was $444.12. That’s up just 0.9 percent over last season, or slightly over $5, per Team Marketing Report’s data that was published Thursday.

Here’s the full 2021-22 NBA Fan Cost Index:

The Knicks have made the playoffs once — a first-round exit at the hands of the Atlanta Hawks in 2020-21 — since 2013, which was the last season they finished first in the Atlantic Division. They’ve had just six playoff seasons in the 21st century and four seasons above .500.

New York, a playoff staple in the 1980s and ’90s, hasn’t made the NBA Finals since losing to the San Antonio Spurs in 1999. The Knicks haven’t won a title since seven future Hall of Famers did it in 1973.

The only other teams to ever sit atop FCI costs in the project’s 31 years are the Celtics and Lakers. The Knicks have been most expensive for fans 21 times.

“Looking at the Knicks, they’ve been the first or second most expensive team every single year of 31 FCIs. Through the good or bad on the court,” said Chris Hartweg, Team Marketing Report’s publisher. “Some of that is New York cost of living, but not the nearly $200 FCI gap more than San Francisco for Steph and the Warriors or $225 more than LeBron and the Lakers in L.A.

“Much of it is MSG mystique perhaps as the Rangers have been the first or second most expensive U.S. team NHL the last 13 years as well. And we don’t see that from the Nets or Islanders in FCI costs. Those Gotham counterparts have been much more middle of the road.”

Based on overall win-loss record and FCI, other pretty good bang-for-the-buck NBA teams this season included the Phoenix Suns, Memphis Grizzlies and Miami Heat. The Suns, in particular, were a great value with a league-best 32-9 home record.

Pocketbook busts included the Sacramento Kings and Houston Rockets, the latter of which had an NBA-worst 11-30 record at home while costing an average of $565 to take a family to games.

Then you have an outlier in the Brooklyn Nets, who finished 44-38 but were sub .500 at home (20-21). They ranked 13th with a $443 FCI.

Non-premium NBA ticket prices increased only slightly (0.3 percent) over last season to a weighted average of $77.75. Eighteen teams held ticket prices flat this season, a record in the 31 years Team Marketing Report has crunched NBA costs. Two teams lowered their average ticket costs.

That many teams keeping costs flat or lowering them was the most since 23 did in 2009-10 and 25 in 2010-11, which Team Marketing Report noted was the last major national recession.

The Indiana Pacers show a 13 percent year-over-year FCI decline fueled be a 20.5-percent average ticket price drop, but that stems from the multiyear Gainbridge Fieldhouse renovation project that affects seating, per Team Marketing Report.

Ten teams raised ticket prices over last season, led by a 6.1 increase by the Warriors — they averaged 18,064 a game this season, a 100 percent sellout rate fueled in part by Klay Thompson’s long-awaited return in January. That’s a slightly more than an $8 increase in Golden State tickets to an average of $139.49.

The fan costs for the U.S. major sports leagues are calculated annually by Team Marketing Report, a Chicago-based sports business intelligence firm that since 1991 has crunched and published the numbers after conducting team surveys. The cost metrics are based on the average cost of four non-premium tickets, two beers, two sodas, four hot dogs, two souvenir hats (as a proxy for merch buying) and parking.

Premium seating isn’t included in the basic FCI rankings. Nor are secondary market ticket sales, which are a litmus test of a team’s popularity as a season progresses.

The NBA’s Fan Cost Index has grown by nearly 44 percent over the past 10 seasons.

It should be noted that the generally modest year-over-year fan cost price increases this season came not just amid ongoing inflation issues but also as the NBA recovers from two pandemic-roiled seasons. This past regular season was the first to have a full 82-game schedule, and full arena capacities, since 2018-19.

Mavs owner Mark Cuban isn’t a fan of the Fan Cost Index.

“Wins and losses aren’t really relevant. That sells the last 10- to 20 percent of tickets. At most,” he said via email Thursday. “Your 10-year-old wants to go to the game and have fun. A couple wants to go on a date. A bunch of coworkers want to have fun at the game. They want the home team to win. But you can have fun watching bad teams, too.”

Cuban said the Mavs have 4,000 tickets priced under $29 for each regular-season game, with prices starting at $18.

“That’s cheaper than going to the movies these days,” he said. “The real index is relative to other entertainment options in the market.”

Those all are valid points, but in the end, the general expectation is winning even if people attend games for other reasons such as company group outings or just to see a great player on a mediocre team.

How does the NBA stack up against the other major leagues? This chart includes the most recent Fan Cost Indexes.

Hartweg said the NBA and NHL are good to compare because their seasons are concurrent, both 82 games long and often in the same arenas. Their FCI averages nearly mirrored each other from 2016 to -2021, but the NHL got a little more expensive this season.

“We are again seeing NHL teams becoming more aggressive than their NBA counterparts on ticket pricing, similar to the early- to mid-2010s when NHL tickets outstripped NBA offerings,” he wrote.

Team Market Report plans to publish FCI data soon for MLB, MLS and some smaller leagues. Its NHL FCI list came out in March, and the NFL list was published in November.

(Photo: Tayfun Coskun / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)