Kobe Bryant's last night in the NBA was pretty wild, as he went for 60 and a win against a recently eliminated Utah Jazz team in a rocking Staples Center full of former players, celebrities, and screaming jubilant fans.
That was the basketball side of it, in short. The business and merchandising side was just as wild. If you wanted to partake in this party, or have some kind of memorabilia to take away from it at least, it was going to cost you more than ever before.
Let's look at some of the prices you likely won't see anywhere else, ever again.
The cheapest ticket prices for a nosebleed section seat were listed on StubHub.com for $729.00. That doesn't even include fees.
A general floor seat ticket would normally cost between $1000- $2,000 on a given night, which is still expensive, but on this night the floor seat tickets cost as much as $27,500, while Ticketmaster sold court side seats for as much $32,000. If you wanted to see Kobe Bryant live one last time, you had to pay up.
If you didn't have twenty or thirty grand to splurge on a court side seat, you could always set up high and remember the moment with some memorabilia. Hat's sold for a whopping $72.48 each, so that was pretty pricey as well.
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Other items of note:
Limited edition jerseys sold for $424 each.
8 lambskin hats sold for $38,024.
8 cashmere with five diamonds on them sold for $24,008.
24 leather jackets with Swarovski crystals on them sold for $5,824.
Even with the outrageous prices, there weren't many items left on the racks. The average fan spent $61 on merchandise alone.
AEG vice president of merchandise Sean Ryan told ESPN, the Staples Center sold $1.2 million worth of Kobe merchandise, a single day's record by any arena in the world.
When ESPN asked Kobe what he thought about the sales and pricing records that didn't stop people from buying, he laughed, but had this much to say:
“It says that fans are really appreciative of this moment and wanted to maybe have something they can remember.”
The previous record, was set by Led Zeppelin, who sold $1 million worth of merchandise in London at the O2 Arena on Dec. 10, 2007.
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