Spurs sued by fan for sending home top players

NBA fan is suing the Spurs for that incident last month where Popovich sent Duncan, Ginobili, et all, home instead of playing them against the Heat. Fan, who is also a lawyer, says he paid premium tickets expecting to see the best players.

It's an interesting suit, and I can actually see merit to it. If I buy tickets to a game, I expect all the stars to be there. But this does create a slippery slope. Can a team get sued when a star gets injured? What about in baseball, where stars routinely get occassional games off?

http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/8847216/san-antonio-spurs-sued-lawyer-resting-top-players

 

Guy's got a point about the premium prices, but I don't see that his beef is with the Spurs. It wasn't the Spurs' decision to charge a premium price; it was the Heat's.

If Stern gave a shit about fans, he'd divert some of that fine money (or increase it, if the fine goes to charity) and tell the Heat to contact all ticketholders, within reason, and refund the difference between the regular price and the premium price.

 

I thought about baseball, too.

What if I buy a ticket to see the Brewers because I'm a Ryan Braun fan and he takes the day off? Can I sue? How about if I count the days to see Roy Halladay start and a rain out juggles the rotation?

The guy bought a ticket for a basketball game and he saw a basketball game -- a very competitive one at that. I don't think there's a case.

But some teams do market their opponents, and that could be a problem. When the Clippers sucked they would have newspaper ads promoting Kobe and the Lakers or MJ and the Bulls. What if you bought a ticket off that premise and the star didn't play? Would you have a case then?

 

It's worse in baseball with "dyanmic pricing." Want to see the Yankees, Dodgers, Red Sox or Cubs during their only visit to your town? I'll cost you a bit more than for, say, the Royals, Mariners or Marlins.

 

If teams are allowed to adjust ticket prices based on the perceived star power of opponents, the NFL should pay fans to attend exhibition games.

 

I don't know anything about the state's fair trade practice law, but this seems like mostly BS to me. No fan has any sort of legal expectation that every star is going to be playing in whatever game he or she attends.

Also, as a lawyer, this comment made me cringe:

 

I'll use a pro wrestling term: Card subject to change.

Some wrestling companies do give partial refunds if a star doesn't appear. The shows I've been at have announced it prior to the matches starting, and gives fans a chance to go to the ticket office and gettheir money back. Very few do.

 

The only problem with this lawsuit is that it wasn't tossed out 30 seconds after it was filed. This has less than no chance of going anywhere.

 

"Mr. Simpson, this is the most blatant case of false advertising since my class action lawsuit against the creators of The Neverending Story."

 

Back in the day, this was always my response to a coach or PR dude who tried to withhold injury or player status info:
The ticket-buying public demands to know.