Few teams in NBA history have come out of the blocks with such ferocity as this year’s Cleveland Cavaliers, who at 13-0 hold the longest unbeaten start to a campaign since the 2015-16 Golden State Warriors went 24-0. Those Dubs finished with the best regular season record in history at 73-9 but were infamously dispatched by the LeBron James and Kyrie Irving-led Cavs in the NBA Finals.
Led by new Cleveland head coach Kenny Atkinson and the dynamic backcourt of Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland, the league’s best offense has taken the league by storm. While the undefeated record is a surprise, the business side of the franchise has been preparing for its return to the top of the Eastern Conference for some time.
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In 2018, the Cavaliers and team governor Dan Gilbert began a $185 million renovation of Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse. Nic Barlage, the team’s CEO, said the changes – completed in September 2019 – were an opportunity to increase ticket accessibility for the fans while maximizing the value of each ticket sold.
“We wanted to be able to be in, from a success perspective, the top 10, the top seven, whatever the case may be,” Barlage said in a telephone interview. “It’s really hard to challenge and get to the levels of New York (Knicks) and Golden State just because they’re huge from a ticket standpoint. But we’ve always known that we have incredible fans. We have great support all over the state of Ohio. And so for us , we said we were going to get really aggressive.”
The Cavs have limited season tickets to a very small percentage of the seats in the arena. In turn, the team has also tripled availability for partial ticket plans, group packages and single-match tickets. One goal was to give fans more opportunities to attend games at different entry points, whether for one game or multiple. The second, more dynamic reason was that buying smaller plans or single game tickets allowed the Cavs to raise their average ticket price.
“If you sell a seat four times, you can sell that same seat four times at a slightly higher price than if you only sell it once,” Barlage said. “And that model is confirmed when you see 191% higher in single-game tickets, 89% higher in membership and partial plans year over year. Group tickets are up 22%. Rentals are up 279% year over year. That’s a tribute to the performance of our general building.”
The ticket strategy, used by several NBA teams, was also a safeguard when James left the Cavs for a second time after the 2017-18 season. There was a significant drop in multiple trade areas for the Cavs after the star’s departure for the Miami Heat in 2010, but Barlage said the team embraced the transition the second time around, spending the previous year-and-a-half preparing for James’ potential. . 2018 exit.
Citing astute drafting and roster management by team president Koby Altman — drafting Garland and Evan Mobley, trading Mitchell and Jarrett Allen — Barlage said the team hasn’t seen the massive dips. [in attendance] compared to 2010.
“We’ve had sustainability to our business, and a lot of that has been because of the transformation, renovating all of our spaces, having a lot of contractually obligated revenue and deals all over the place,” Barlage said. “But we didn’t have a lot of fans asking to come out either. They trusted the organization. They knew (Gilbert) would invest to the hilt to rebuild a franchise.”
The experience also translates to the fans’ screens. Viewership through the first nine games shown on the Diamond Sports Group-owned FanDuel Sports Network Ohio grew 31% over the same period last season. The regional channel’s footprint spreads beyond the state of Ohio, reaching as far east as Buffalo and Pittsburgh.
Within the Cleveland-Akron-Canton DMA itself, local telecasts averaged a 4.2 rating, up 29.2% year over year. Before Wednesday’s game against Philadelphia, the last four telecasts averaged a 5.2 local rating. The Cavs also said that a total of almost 2 million viewers in the DMA watched the Cavs during the first 12 games.
The metrics will help inform the local rights team’s decision-making process in the future. As DSG continues to struggle for its survival, the Cavs’ own holding company, Rock Entertainment Group, launched over-the-air network this summer, RESN, to broadcast games for some of its sister properties such as the G League affiliate Cleveland Charge and the Cleveland Monsters of the AHL. In July, Cavaliers EVP Mike Conley said sporty that the team will continue to monitor DSG’s bankruptcy proceedings by staying on FanDuel Sports.
“The strength of the regionality of our brand is really what will be the foundation for us as we go forward, whether we stay with FanDuel Sports Network or whether we transition to RESN,” Barlage said. “I think that’s why FanDuel Sports was so motivated to keep us as well. The NBA is strong, and it attracts a great younger demo for advertisers, and so I think we’re as confident as ever about where our local rights are going to be.”
Although the team has developed accessibility for tickets, something over which it has full control, it does not have the same influence over the reach of the RSN.
“I think seeing the audience numbers is great, and being over 31% is great, but accessibility is still an issue,” Barlage said. “We are only in 33 or 36% of the homes in our television market. That is not enough.”
The Cavaliers, worth $3.22 billion, rank 22nd out of 30 NBA teams in That of Sporticofranchise valuations. Gilbert, the founder of Quicken Loans, bought the team for $335 million in 2005.
