I am typing this out while I am SUPER SALTY and hopefully you can feel my bitterness through my words. Anyway, a few months back, a reader tipped me off that I should buy the Phoenix Suns at Dallas Mavericks home game. I had no idea why he would want me to buy a silly game, but he was speculating that this was Dirk Nowitzki’s last year. Seeing as how the last Dwayne Wade Heats game shot up as soon as he announced his retirement, then I thought this was a great play. Only problem – Dirk is a very low key guy and doesn’t like the spotlight, so he didn’t want to go on a “final tour” like Dwayne did. So it was a bit of a gamble because I really wasn’t sure if he actually was going to retire or try to hang on for another year. Anyway, I got some cheap nosebleeds for the last home game; I believe face was about $90 at the time and with fees, came out to $116. I also got some section 200 suite like seats for about $160 all in. This was back in mid January.
Fast forward a month and I think the reader emailed me back giving me the current status. We still don’t know if he’s retiring or not. He then points out that if I was a gambling man, I’d buy the Spurs vs Mavs game, a day after the Mavs home game and potentially Dirk’s FINAL NBA GAME. Since San Antonio was a 4 hour drive away from Dallas, you could see some fans driving down or even the San Antonio folks would want to come out and see his last game. Of course the Viet gambling blood was coursing through me. Go big or go home right? DOUBLE DOWN ON THAT 11 WITH A 10 SHOWING! I then went and bought a large chunk of the $35 seats, which came out to about $40 all in per ticket.
I waited until 3/31 to list the tickets just because I was waiting for him to officially announce his retirement. It wasn’t happening. I finally had a sale on 4/1 for a 13% ROI after fees. By 4/6, still no word of his retirement. I lower my prices. Sold a pair for -19%. UGH. Fast forward to 4/8, a day before his last home game. Prices sorta rebound a bit. I sell a pair for just -17% ROI. I sell the 200 seats for a +15% ROI. LESSON LEARNED – CHEAP SEATS WERE NOT THE PLAY HERE. April 9 – day of game – still holding a pair. I just want out because I don’t want to figuratively burn the tickets – I lose -26% on the tickets. Total ROI turned out to be -5% since the 200 seats were more expensive and profitable. This is also when I decide I should lower the Spurs tickets too since I didn’t want them wasted. I was trying to sell them for $50, but they weren’t moving so I lowered them to $40.
The last home game is being played. I don’t watch it, but I watch some highlights on Twitter at around 10PM CT. Still no word on his retirement. I go about my business. Then at around 9:15PM, my buddy sends me the ESPN retirement link. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I check my email:
Too late. All of my tickets had sold. After fees, I was losing about 12% ROI per pair. Before the announcement,a week earlier, I sold some at $50, which netted me +5% after fees. So I swung from being +5% or even higher to now heavily weighted to-12% ROI. All he had to do was officially announce his retirement BEFORE the Mavs game, I would have been golden. Or I should have just waited until after the game anyway. Ugh. Tough lesson learned. I think the bigger picture here is I just need to stay away from sports.