Hey, NBA, it’s time to return my money
Dear NBA: Give me back my money. Now, please.
It has been two months since the league suspended the season because of COVID-19. Enough already.
Back in December, I bought two tickets to the Chicago Bulls game against the Boston Celtics scheduled for March 15 at the United Center. My husband and I thought it’d be fun to bring our daughter to her first basketball game. She’d love Benny the Bull’s antics, and I’d get a kick out my husband trying to convince her to root for his hometown team. (That leprechaun? Is that even a mascot?)
Our biggest concern when we bought the tickets was that our three-year-old would be too tall for the Bulls’ weird, heightbased kids policy. Now we’re worried about a pandemic and our financial future. Having $150 (U.S.) back would come in handy right about now.
That’s true for many more who are enduring far worse. Unemployment is at its highest point since the Great Depression with 36 million Americans filing claims. The fact that multibillion-dollar sports franchises are continuing to hold on to ticket holders’ money is unconscionable.
Fans aren’t stupid. Conference finals should be happening right now while the NBA Finals were supposed to start June 4. There’s no way all those “postponed” games are going to get played, even if they do figure out a way to salvage part of the season.
Not long after a class-action lawsuit was filed against Major League Baseball and its 30 teams, ticket refunds and credits followed. Ticketmaster announced refunds shortly after attracting attention from members of Congress. What will it take to get the NBA to do the right thing by its fans? Give me back my money, NBA.
And that plan of yours to reopen the season? It’s tone deaf at best, flat-out dangerous at worst. The league reportedly is in talks to move play to a closed campus or two — maybe in Las Vegas or Walt Disney World — to hold games without fans. The plan relies on massive testing of everyone inside the bubble.
Is it really a fair tournament if key players are sidelined by the coronavirus? Who wants to watch that?
During a conference call this week, NBA commissioner Adam Silver acknowledged the league expected players would test positive. How is it ethical to knowingly put people at risk? There’s no way to play socially distant basketball. To operate this bubble, the league would need to hire all kinds of service-industry workers. Will they be paying for the cost of their health care when they get sick, too? We should insist on a level of responsibility from our athletes and leagues. It isn’t a big leap to assume seeing basketball on TV will inspire a flurry of pickup games.
The only thing this plan does is lay bare the brutal double standard at work in the coronavirus era. You may not be able to pay your way out of a diagnosis, but you can use your money to bend the rules to enrich yourself. You can build yourself a bubble. You can hold onto other people’s money indefinitely.
And you can ruin a relationship with a fan. Give me back my money, NBA. I don’t want what you’re selling.