Joe Lacob Rumors
It’s rare that a season in any sport is torched in Week 1, but what choice was there? Though the Warriors added D’Angelo Russell, hoping he might offset some of the offense lost with KevIn Durant’s departure (a decision that, according to some, still haunts franchise CEO Joe Lacob) – and, at worst, be of value in trade – they already had seen enough of D-Lo to know he is not equipped to fill the leadership/galvanization void created by Curry’s absence.
So, while many of his employees were clearly and logically shellshocked in the Curry news aftermath, Lacob agreed to answer a few questions from me and The Athletic’s Ethan Strauss to make sure people understood that he was not signing up for a long dose of franchise-wide melancholy. “I’m just telling you that the bottom line is I’m not negative and I’m not going to get negative,” Lacob said outside of the Warriors locker room late Wednesday. “I’m an optimist and we’re building something. You’re always looking short term and you’re looking intermediate term and you’re looking long term.
“And I think we’ve got a lot of good young players in place. Potentially, there’s a silver lining in all of this, who knows? And I’m very optimistic about our future. Very optimistic about our future. I think we’re going to be there at some point. Can’t say when. We’ve obviously got a lot of injuries now, but we’re going to be there.”
I asked Lacob: Is it troubling to contemplate your fans paying all that money to come to Chase to watch a struggling team? “I think our fans are smarter than that,” Lacob said. “I think they knew when we started the year without Klay and a lot of younger players that we were going to have to take the year to get better. And it’s obviously gotten a little tougher now with the injuries — we’ve had a lot of injuries — and I think our fans will understand that and we’ll stick with us.
Starting this inaugural Chase season, it’s estimated that the Warriors will take in about $700 million in annual revenue for the foreseeable future. This about $250-300 million more than the Knicks or Lakers, the next-highest NBA teams, and possibly more than even any NFL team, “except maybe the Cowboys,” one source said. Actually, in 2018, Forbes estimated that the Cowboys took in about $950 million in annual revenue, so the Warriors aren’t there. But it’s still higher than any non-Cowboys NFL team (Forbes estimates that the Patriots are the next highest in the NFL, at $600 million in annual revenue), higher than the Yankees’ Forbes-estimated $668 million (No. 1 in MLB) and more than $400 million higher than Forbes’ estimate for the NBA average.
The Warriors are set to take in about $5 million in gate receipts per game, before costs are subtracted from the total. Yes, if you divide that by the 18,064 listed capacity, that’s $277 per person in the arena. This is a number, I must admit, that I did not expect. I knew the Warriors grossed upward of $4-5 million per early-round playoff game at Oracle the last few years, but I had no idea that their regular-season gate could be so high. But I’ve since been told that the Warriors grossed about $3 million per regular-season game in Oracle’s final season, so a bump up to $5 million per date at Chase certainly makes sense.
