76ers Set Eye-Popping Ticket Price for LeBron James' Home Debut Against Cavaliers

Last season, the average ticket to a 76ers home game sold for $68, according to TickPick. That number belonged to a team that didn't crack the NBA's top 15 in ticket demand. This season, the cheapest resale seat for a single 76ers home game is already running five times that price and the season hasn't even started.

The reason is simple. LeBron James is now a Sixer, and Philadelphia just found out what that does to a box office.

As of this article's publication, the lowest available ticket on StubHub for the 76ers' home opener on October 22 against the Cleveland Cavaliers is $342. The best seat in the stadium is being sold at a price of $1,701. TickPick has the lowest purchase price for that same game at $291. SeatGeek's cheapest listing sits just under $308. Three different platforms already indicate that this is one of the most expensive tickets in the league for a game that's still nearly two months away.

On October 22, James will be facing the franchise that drafted him back in 2003. That too in his first home game wearing a Sixers jersey. James has played for the Cavs for 11 years in two stints and won the franchise's maiden title in 2016.

This is why the price sits where it does at the moment. TickPick ranks it second-highest-demand on the 76ers schedule, behind only the preseason opener at Madison Square Garden vs the defending champions, New York Knicks.

"The Sixers are commanding a larger share of schedule-release ticket demand than any team StubHub has tracked in the modern era," StubHub spokesperson Jill Gonzalez told Forbes, suggesting the demand for the Sixers games' tickets.

So why does one player moving teams do this to an entire market? Because James has done it before, and the pattern hasn't broken yet.

The LeBron James Effect: A Repeating Pattern

When James left Cleveland for Miami in 2010, ticket prices around the league spiked. When he left Miami to return to Cleveland in 2014, the same thing happened again. And when he signed with the Lakers in 2018, StubHub started listing home-opener tickets at $545 within hours, after Los Angeles had sold tickets to its first home game the year before for as low as $60.

"LeBron has been one of the NBA’s biggest draws, if not its biggest, over the last 23 years. We've seen the 'LeBron Effect' play out in the past. When he joins a new team, ticket prices spike," TickPick co-CEO Brett Goldberg said, adding that road prices for the 76ers will likely climb even higher once the season begins.

That track record is why this isn't being treated as a one-time bump. What could this mean for the rest of the season? If the pattern holds the way it has every other time James has changed teams, the price will be going higher and higher throughout the season.