BOK Center basketball setup

[TheTed]

At most venues I end up sitting behind the baskets because that's the only way I can get anywhere close to the court without paying an arm and a leg.

I generally sit behind the basket at TU home games, maybe 15 rows up. They're not bad seats and they're affordable.

With Sunday's BOK center configuration, seats 15 rows from the court are very far from the court and not very elevated, generally bad sightlines.

The way they set up the arena Sunday, there were no decent seats for less than $50.

I can go to a TU home game or an OU home game and get decent seats for $20 or less.

If the BOK center is gonna be set up the way it was Sunday for every basketball game, I might as well stay home and watch on TV.

As I'm sure you know, good basketball venues put you close to the court and the elevations are steep.

Bad basketball venues have slight elevations put you farther horizontally from the court (like football domes that the NCAA is so fond of playing basketball in).

[Gold]

It sounds like your gripe is more with the ticket prices.  I agree that the OU-TU tickets were way overpriced.  TU was running the show for this event and while I'm a diehard of diehard TU fans, I think they could have done a much better job.  Of course, I doubt anyone paid $50 to watch a slaughter like that (OU fans even seemed bored).

A lot of times in NCAA tournament games, that empty space is reserved for the bands.  You'll oftem have four team bands in a flight of games and they need that space for all their gear.

GIA has one of the steepest setups ever, if not the steepest, and it puts fans pretty far from the action, in addition to giving them vertigo.

[TheTed]

Risking vertigo is much better than trying to rubberneck around the people sitting in front of you, the basket, the floor moppers, the ushers and everybody else that obstructs your view when there's no slope to the seating area.

Even if they set up the BOK Center like most NBA arenas, the sightlines behind the basket wouldn't be that great. As an average height person, I've been unable to see much when a slightly above average height person sits in front of me at a hockey/basketball venue.

But that's just a general gripe with arenas built for hockey, which it seems most major arenas are.

Places like Conseco Fieldhouse and the FedEx Forum are among the few pro arenas with good sightlines because they didn't build them with hockey in mind.

At most college basketball games, the seats along the sidelines in the lower level are spoken for (season ticket holders, advertisers, school bigwigs, etc).

Behind the basket is the only place a regular non season ticket holder such as myself can afford to sit and still have decent seats.

Sunday's setup at the BOK Center made sure any affordable seats behind the basket were bad seats. And it was a small-time setup at a venue that's supposedly as good as any in the country.