The Golden State Valkyries have received 15,000 deposits by prospective season ticketholders, and conducted an open house at the Chase Center Aug. 17 to bring together sales representatives and fans.
Fans were restricted to exploring the lower two levels of seats. If one wanted to see the upper deck — like I did — an escort was needed. It took 35 minutes to get the escort, which is the level of service one might expect if one can afford cheap seats.
The wait strengthened my resolve to get a job with the team, so I don’t wind up as a customer getting what I pay for.
I asked Adam, who provides group sales for the Warriors, to show me the worst seat in the building. If the worst seat is tolerable, I said, then any other would be at least OK.
He knew where to take me. Up the elevator to the sixth floor, across a walkway with a spectacular view of the Bay, to Section 201, Row 1, Seat 1.
See the angled edge in Section 201? It’s a barrier to prevent people from falling to the level below. In Rows 1-6, Seat 1 is beside that wall, and it’s opaque. The shorter you are, the worse it gets — I’m 5-foot-9, and about one-fourth of the court was obstructed from view.
The Warriors’ virtual seating chart includes the wall. This is meant to represent the view from Section 201, Row 5. Seat 1 is to the right, beside that wall — sit there for just $129 during a Warriors game.
Let’s say Valkyries tickets cost half what the Warriors tickets do. Would I pay $65 to sit anywhere in Section 201?
My seat at Arco Arena for the Sacramento Monarchs was 10th row, opposite the visiting bench, for $35. During a couple games, a friend let me join him 5th row on the baseline, a bit obstructed by the basket stanchion. Those seats were $57, eight years ago. Sounds like a bargain today, compared to an estimated $65 for a seat in the third tier at the Chase Center, behind a safety wall.
That’s the cost of the progress the Warriors brought to Bay Area basketball, and the Caitlin Clark Effect on women’s basketball.
We speculated about ticket prices while waiting in line to get inside. “Gonna cost a fortune”, said the woman behind me, who loved the freebies and swag she received during her visit to the Las Vegas Aces.
“Keep in mind”, I said, “selling your ticket to the Fever game can pay for the rest of the season.” My friends in Queens who’ve followed the New York Liberty for several years did that.
“But that’s the game I most want to see!” said a young woman.
She and her family are from Sacramento. They had my sympathy. “I’m saving 100 miles (of driving)”, I said. “Now you’re losing 100 miles.”
On a staircase in the distance, I saw a woman wearing an ABL San Jose Lasers jersey, with Jennifer Azzi’s no. 8.
I encountered the woman and her husband later. Even kids not yet born during the ABL days appreciated that jersey, she said.
I told the couple that I wore that jersey to Coach Azzi’s first game as the coach of the University of San Francisco. “She came out to talk to the press post-game, and the first thing she said was: ‘Now no one can say I’ve never done this’.”
Some were dubious about Azzi taking over at USF because she’d never coached before. She’s Jennifer Azzi. Maybe she’s never jumped out of an airplane, but I’d follow her — with the proper equipment.
Azzi’s assistant Blair Hardiek — one of my favorite people, from her playing days at Missouri with forward Carlyn Savant (an incredible shooter for her size), to her years as an assistant at San Francisco State — said: “Look at this guy’s jersey”, she said.
One of the USF players walked by. “That’s my jersey!” Azzi told her. “I ought to show this to all the players”, she said. (I thought: Don’t they know!?)
Another jersey seen Saturday at the Chase Center was an Iriafen, along with a Stanford cap.
“When I ask about who should coach this team, I get mostly wrong answers”, I said, “but I suspect you’d give me the correct one.”
“Tara VanDerveer”, she said. “What do I win?”
I think Coach VanDerveer should’ve been the first phone call Golden State made about the coaching job. Adam the group sales executive said Lisa Leslie has toured the building. I don’t think a Bay Area crowd would respond well to LosAngelesLisa as the Valkyries’ first head coach.
Could we get Coach VanDerveer and Lexie Hull in the expansion draft? If each team is permitted to protect seven, Indiana might let Hull go, considering the Stanford star is 9th on the Fever in MP, and 12th in PER.
But after her career game a few nights ago, Caitlin Clark turned her Twitter into a Lexie Hull fan page. If Clark wants someone to stick around in Indiana, I’d consider her stuck.
