• Steve Ballmer is looking to introduce a ‘season pass’ model to his season tickets
• The initiative hopes to mitigate season ticket holders selling their tickets to others when they will not be attending games
• The Clippers move into their new arena at the start of the 2024-25 season
The Los Angeles Clippers may be at the forefront of change with a new idea floated around by Steve Ballmer. While talking to Paul George on ‘Podcast P’, Ballmer revealed he’s trying to make a ‘Clippers Season Pass’ that allows season tickets to be shared among four registered users to stop people from selling tickets to games they won’t attend.
(Starts at 1:09:00)
“We’re working on a Clippers season pass. You buy a season ticket, you sell it if you’re not going. I don’t like that. That’s how we get the other teams’ fans. A season pass, like Netflix, you can share it with 3-4 people. You can’t sell that.”
The motive is understandable, but Ballmer may face a different struggle if a rule like this is enforced. Not every season ticket holder wants to or can attend 82 games a season, so you’re opening your arena to be empty if those holders can’t sell their tickets in an open market where people want to purchase them.
With the Clippers moving out of the Crypto.com arena at the end of the 2022-23 season, they will soon look to develop a new die-hard fan culture, and maybe the season tickets are the first way of establishing that.
Clippers Exiting The Shadow Of The Lakers
Unless the Clippers finally make a championship run this season or beat the Lakers in a playoff series, they will definitely lose the decades of rivalry they have with the Lakers. The derby matchup will still have value given both teams have the names Los Angeles, but the Clippers’ streak of regular season success over the Lakers in the last 10 years has been pointless because of the Lakers’ championship count.
The Clippers with Kawhi Leonard and Paul George were supposed to end the era of Lakers domination, but they haven’t even made it to an NBA Finals while the Lakers have already hoisted a championship since Kawhi and PG teamed up. The Clippers likely will leave Crypto.com Arena without ever having lifted a championship in there.
But a new arena also brings a chance to establish a whole new history. Maybe the Clippers finally start finding the success they’ve aspired for after moving into an arena dedicated to them.
The Clippers Chances In 2023-24
It’s hard to be very optimistic about the Clippers after the four years of doubt they’ve created in the Kawhi-PG era. Everyone knows that the Clippers will be a force to be reckoned with if they’re healthy, but will they ever be healthy? They were in the market for James Harden, but it looks increasingly unlikely that a deal can be done before the start of the season.
They should be in the race for a top-six spot but will have concerns over an increasingly stagnant roster featuring the likes of Robert Covington, Marcus Morris Sr. Terance Mann, Norman Powell, Nicolas Batum, and Ivica Zubac. Mann, Powell, and Zubac all have value to provide, but the Clippers will continuously evaluate upgrade options for those stars.
Russell Westbrook and Mason Plumlee can impact the team over the course of a full season now after joining the team in the winter. Young stars like Kobe Brown could make an impact with the injury history of this roster, but they don’t look better for next season like the Lakers and Suns do.
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