http://www.sacbee.com/100/story/107331.html
Kings fans in a funk
Poor play, arena squabble cool passion for purple
By Debbie Arrington - Bee Staff Writer
Published 12:00 am PST Saturday, January 13, 2007
Story appeared in MAIN NEWS section, Page A1
Sometime in the fourth quarter as the Kings tumbled to the Cleveland Cavaliers, Bill and Karen Wilbur had seen enough.
It wasn't the flurry of LeBron James' jumpers that sank their hearts Tuesday night, but the lack of energy from the Kings, who watched a 17-point lead dissolve into a 10-point loss.
"We've been there since Day One," said Bill Wilbur, a Kings season ticket holder for 21 years. "But that's the first time we walked out."
"I'm so disgusted I think we're going to sell our tickets for the next few games," added Wilbur, a retired businessman from Wilton. "I don't want to come back until they act like they want to play."
The Wilburs aren't alone. Throughout the Valley, Kings fans are coping with dissatisfaction as their former high-flying franchise finds itself in the Pacific Division basement.
The signs are everywhere: empty seats at Arco Arena, lower TV ratings, no playoffs in sight. More boos than cowbells echo in the stands.
Has Sacramento's purple passion gone cold?
Co-owner Joe Maloof says he hears -- and shares -- the pain.
"I'd worry if I didn't hear from fans," Maloof said. "Apathy is the worst thing. When nobody cares, you've got to worry."
Just three years removed from the Pacific Division championship, the Kings have lost much of their hometown swagger at Arco, where they've won only half their appearances this season. Now 14-18 overall and 10-10 at home, the Kings host the Houston Rockets tonight.
"We used to feel we could beat anybody any night at Arco, but not anymore," Wilbur said. "That was back when we had Vlade (Divac) and Peja (Stojakovic) and (Chris) Webber. Now, the buzz isn't there (in the arena)."
The absence of such charismatic stars as those and others from the past adds to the disaffection. Gone, too, are former fan faves Bobby Jackson, Doug Christie and Hedo Turkoglu. And after eight playoff seasons under Rick Adelman, first-year coach Eric Musselman is off to a rough start.
Mike Bibby, the current team's longest-tenured player, wondered this week if some teammates were more concerned about individual statistics than with winning.
Sports-fan researcher Christian End has seen this syndrome before. It's called BIRGing and CORFing.
When teams do well, fans "bask in reflected glory" -- they watch more games, buy more T-shirts and identify with their winners. When that favored franchise spirals downward, fans "cut off reflected failure" -- tuning out and distancing themselves from repeated losses.
Besides riding the normal roller coaster of emotions that comes with win-loss cycles, Kings fans and the city also have had to cope with an arena issue that has some die-hards wondering if the team will be around in a few years.
Greg Prowell, a longtime season ticket holder, sees a backlash from the recent vote against a downtown arena.
"(The Maloofs) have decided that they no longer will spend the money to make the Kings a contender because they are mad at the community for failing to finance their arena," Prowell said.
Such an unsettling situation adds to fan angst.
"That just makes it all worse," said End, an assistant psychology professor at Xavier University in Cincinnati and a national expert on fan behavior.
Although Kings ticket prices were not raised this season, they were third-highest for 2005-06.
"The high expectations and higher ticket prices are still there, but the team's record doesn't reflect it," End added. "There's a real disconnect. The team is probably no worse than it was 10 years ago, but now the expectation is an NBA championship, not a .500 record."
Since 1999, when the Kings started an eight-season playoff stretch, Sacramento has hung its collective ego on the basketball court. Coincidentally, the Kings' fortunes soared along with the building boom in the Sacramento Valley. That produced thousands of new local fans who latched onto the division champion Kings but who have little trouble letting go now.
The team's record isn't all that's slumping. So is the marketplace for all things Kings. Tickets, apparel, TV ratings -- all feel the aftershock of lowered expectations.
Once the hardest ducat to get in Sacramento, Kings tickets sometimes go begging. Although the Kings claim to have 333 consecutive sellouts of 17,317 at Arco, the actual number in attendance is fewer as ticket holders have trouble re-selling their seats.
With this current Arco losing streak, requests for Kings tickets have gone down, said sales manager Lakota Verberne of All Events Tickets in Roseville. "What's basically pulling in sales is the opposing team, not the Kings."
"We get lots of feedback from season ticket holders," she added. "The biggest problem is the face value of tickets being so high. It's such a liability to have to pay that much money for an entire season.
"It would be one thing if (the Kings) were playing the way they should be for the prices the Maloofs are charging. People can send their kids to college for that."
Two floor seats for 41 games, with parking, cost about $10,000 a season.
Nationwide, the market for Kings jerseys, other apparel and memorabilia has slipped out of its former elite status. Sacramento does not rank in the NBA's top 10 sellers. No jersey of a Kings player made the top 15.
On News 10, ratings for Kings broadcasts are down. So far this season, their televised games have averaged a 6.0 rating with 10 share compared with an 8.3 rating and 14 share a year ago, according to station sources. That boils down to almost 30,000 fewer Sacramento-area households watching per game.
On the positive side, the Kings' local TV rating is still almost triple the league's national average.
Maloof said the team's objective remains the same.
"Our goal has always been to win a title. We've got to keep that in mind."
"We're not out of it yet (this season)," he added. "I still feel we could make the playoffs. That could change in another 20 games, but we're not throwing in the towel, and we hope the fans won't either."
About the writer: The Bee's Debbie Arrington can be reached at (916) 326-5514 or darrington@sacbee.com. Bee sports columnist Marcos Bretón contributed to this report.
Kings fans in a funk
Poor play, arena squabble cool passion for purple
By Debbie Arrington - Bee Staff Writer
Published 12:00 am PST Saturday, January 13, 2007
Story appeared in MAIN NEWS section, Page A1
Sometime in the fourth quarter as the Kings tumbled to the Cleveland Cavaliers, Bill and Karen Wilbur had seen enough.
It wasn't the flurry of LeBron James' jumpers that sank their hearts Tuesday night, but the lack of energy from the Kings, who watched a 17-point lead dissolve into a 10-point loss.
"We've been there since Day One," said Bill Wilbur, a Kings season ticket holder for 21 years. "But that's the first time we walked out."
"I'm so disgusted I think we're going to sell our tickets for the next few games," added Wilbur, a retired businessman from Wilton. "I don't want to come back until they act like they want to play."
The Wilburs aren't alone. Throughout the Valley, Kings fans are coping with dissatisfaction as their former high-flying franchise finds itself in the Pacific Division basement.
The signs are everywhere: empty seats at Arco Arena, lower TV ratings, no playoffs in sight. More boos than cowbells echo in the stands.
Has Sacramento's purple passion gone cold?
Co-owner Joe Maloof says he hears -- and shares -- the pain.
"I'd worry if I didn't hear from fans," Maloof said. "Apathy is the worst thing. When nobody cares, you've got to worry."
Just three years removed from the Pacific Division championship, the Kings have lost much of their hometown swagger at Arco, where they've won only half their appearances this season. Now 14-18 overall and 10-10 at home, the Kings host the Houston Rockets tonight.
"We used to feel we could beat anybody any night at Arco, but not anymore," Wilbur said. "That was back when we had Vlade (Divac) and Peja (Stojakovic) and (Chris) Webber. Now, the buzz isn't there (in the arena)."
The absence of such charismatic stars as those and others from the past adds to the disaffection. Gone, too, are former fan faves Bobby Jackson, Doug Christie and Hedo Turkoglu. And after eight playoff seasons under Rick Adelman, first-year coach Eric Musselman is off to a rough start.
Mike Bibby, the current team's longest-tenured player, wondered this week if some teammates were more concerned about individual statistics than with winning.
Sports-fan researcher Christian End has seen this syndrome before. It's called BIRGing and CORFing.
When teams do well, fans "bask in reflected glory" -- they watch more games, buy more T-shirts and identify with their winners. When that favored franchise spirals downward, fans "cut off reflected failure" -- tuning out and distancing themselves from repeated losses.
Besides riding the normal roller coaster of emotions that comes with win-loss cycles, Kings fans and the city also have had to cope with an arena issue that has some die-hards wondering if the team will be around in a few years.
Greg Prowell, a longtime season ticket holder, sees a backlash from the recent vote against a downtown arena.
"(The Maloofs) have decided that they no longer will spend the money to make the Kings a contender because they are mad at the community for failing to finance their arena," Prowell said.
Such an unsettling situation adds to fan angst.
"That just makes it all worse," said End, an assistant psychology professor at Xavier University in Cincinnati and a national expert on fan behavior.
Although Kings ticket prices were not raised this season, they were third-highest for 2005-06.
"The high expectations and higher ticket prices are still there, but the team's record doesn't reflect it," End added. "There's a real disconnect. The team is probably no worse than it was 10 years ago, but now the expectation is an NBA championship, not a .500 record."
Since 1999, when the Kings started an eight-season playoff stretch, Sacramento has hung its collective ego on the basketball court. Coincidentally, the Kings' fortunes soared along with the building boom in the Sacramento Valley. That produced thousands of new local fans who latched onto the division champion Kings but who have little trouble letting go now.
The team's record isn't all that's slumping. So is the marketplace for all things Kings. Tickets, apparel, TV ratings -- all feel the aftershock of lowered expectations.
Once the hardest ducat to get in Sacramento, Kings tickets sometimes go begging. Although the Kings claim to have 333 consecutive sellouts of 17,317 at Arco, the actual number in attendance is fewer as ticket holders have trouble re-selling their seats.
With this current Arco losing streak, requests for Kings tickets have gone down, said sales manager Lakota Verberne of All Events Tickets in Roseville. "What's basically pulling in sales is the opposing team, not the Kings."
"We get lots of feedback from season ticket holders," she added. "The biggest problem is the face value of tickets being so high. It's such a liability to have to pay that much money for an entire season.
"It would be one thing if (the Kings) were playing the way they should be for the prices the Maloofs are charging. People can send their kids to college for that."
Two floor seats for 41 games, with parking, cost about $10,000 a season.
Nationwide, the market for Kings jerseys, other apparel and memorabilia has slipped out of its former elite status. Sacramento does not rank in the NBA's top 10 sellers. No jersey of a Kings player made the top 15.
On News 10, ratings for Kings broadcasts are down. So far this season, their televised games have averaged a 6.0 rating with 10 share compared with an 8.3 rating and 14 share a year ago, according to station sources. That boils down to almost 30,000 fewer Sacramento-area households watching per game.
On the positive side, the Kings' local TV rating is still almost triple the league's national average.
Maloof said the team's objective remains the same.
"Our goal has always been to win a title. We've got to keep that in mind."
"We're not out of it yet (this season)," he added. "I still feel we could make the playoffs. That could change in another 20 games, but we're not throwing in the towel, and we hope the fans won't either."
About the writer: The Bee's Debbie Arrington can be reached at (916) 326-5514 or darrington@sacbee.com. Bee sports columnist Marcos Bretón contributed to this report.
