I'm looking to go to the Vegas Summer League for the first time this summer and have some questions for you Summer League vets.
How much are tickets to the games? Do tickets get you into a session of games or are games ticketed individually? Are seats assigned or is it pretty much open seating, first come first serve? How accessible are the players? Are you able to get autographs/selfies? What is the travel time from the Strip to the venue?
Any other pearls you all might have would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Ticket prices have been steadily rising (but only slightly) over the last few years. I think a one-day ticket at the box office should be about $30 at this point, $35 this year wouldn't shock me. Games are not ticketed individually, instead you buy a single admission ticket each day and you may attend all games on that day. The online service fees are pretty outrageous considering the ticket prices, I think last year they were about $12+ per ticket. So I would recommend buying at the box office - yes, there's a "danger" of a sell out but I don't think it has ever actually happened. Unless you're there for the first weekend (Fri-Sun are the most crowded days) I would just count on buying tickets at the box office. I usually buy all my tickets at once the first day I'm there, because I'm in Vegas to do Summer League. I know folks who buy on a day-to-day basis and take days off as they feel like it, going to shows or whatnot. You can generally be flexible like that if you want.
Typically, there are 6-8 games a day, played in two connected venues (there is a hallway/concession space between the two), which means you can see 3-4 full games a day, or hop back and forth and get chunks of up to 8 games. Seating is open, first-come-first-served, though courtside seating is reserved, and very expensive. By this I mean literal courtside - maybe the first row or two of the "permanent" seats on the sideline and of course the folding chairs courtside are reserved and the rest is open seating. You really want to sit 6-10 rows up anyway, you get a better overall view in my opinion. Doors open about an hour before the first game, and you can easily grab very good seats if you're at least 30 minutes early, particularly in the large venue (Thomas&Mack). Even so, you can almost always find seats somewhere in the lower bowl of T&M, the only exception is for Lakers games, and with the Lakers not having a draft pick this year, attendance may be down a bit (I'm such an optimist!). The smaller venue (Cox) will fill up from time to time, and they will hold you at the door until people leave, so if there's a game you are really interested in going on in Cox, you need to plan accordingly. Keep in mind that almost everybody comes to see the top prospects, and they all agree on who those are, so if you want to see a game, everybody else probably does too.
I have not tried to get autographs/selfies from the players. I don't believe you are allowed to bother them on the benches or right after the game as they head back to the locker facilities, but many of them can be seen cruising the hallways. I do hear that players tend to be pretty open to fans in the hallways, but typically when I see them I just let them go by with a nod at most. I did run into Scott Moak last year and, kind of surprised, said, "Oh hey, it's Scott Moak!" and he actually initiated a nice two-minute conversation, super nice guy. There are definitely scheduled autograph signings for specific players, usually say first-round picks, but the lines for these seem substantial.
Travel time from the Strip to the venue wouldn't be bad unless you hit traffic on the Strip. It depends on where you stay. UNLV is on Tropicana, maybe a half mile from where Tropicana hits the Strip. From that intersection, it's literally like three minutes to the parking lot unless you hit all the lights. I tend to stay in the old Downtown section of Vegas (north of the Strip). From there I actually prefer taking one of the back streets to avoid freeway/Strip traffic, and that drive is like 15 minutes or so. I think the real secret, if you stay on the Strip, would be to either stay near Tropicana, or get east from the Strip first thing rather than try to fight through the Strip itself. Then you can approach from the back side and miss all the traffic (there's even a nice "secret" back entrance to the parking lot). Oh, and best of all, parking is free!
