What a load of crap, enjoy the game and maybe read the fine print. All advertising is misleading.

Um no it isn't. And please don't mention the election ads because that isn't covered by consumer law

I'm not sure there'd be much of a case there.
Any time you buy a ticket to a sports event there are fluid factors like selection, availability, sickness/injury, or (in other cases) potential for trades etc. I'd be pretty sure there's fine print in there somewhere - at any sporting event - about no guarantee of seeing any particular individual players. There's also just common sense there.
Where they might be in trouble is the period of time where they continued to use players like KD and Paul George to promote when it was known they were definitely not available. That wouldn't help anyone who bought a ticket a year ago (or whenever they originally went on sale).
Really, it's not some fraud, it's just stupidity. Putting this even on in a football stadium is just end-to-end dumb, especially as the organisers would have known there was a significant risk (almost a guarantee, given World Cup history) of not getting an AAA-Team (from either squad). It was a bad short term money grab, another example of basketball in Australia being terribly managed with zero long term thought.
Far better would have been to play these games in 20k arenas in Melbourne and Sydney, have demand significantly outstrip availability (even if the B-Team US squad had been known from when tickets went on sale, that would have definitely still been the case) and then try and lure the AAA US squad to Australia to do it again before Tokyo - and maybe then have it (one night only) at Marvel or something if you really want.

Fine print doesn't overrule consumer law.

Did people complaining about advertising buy their tickets before or after the withdrawals though? Most bought tickets like a year ago, all the withdrawals happened over the last couple of months, the advertising a year ago wasnt exactly false advertising.

The only ones who should be able to complain about it imo are the ones who saw an ad 3 weeks ago with AD/Harden/Lillard etc and just bought tickets recently, but i dont think there are many of those people

The place is packed it's only a few wingers on here that are complaining. Great for Australian basketball.

Seeya!

50,000ish isn't packed. It's called not sold out. Perhaps 30,000 short of sold out in fact.

The stadium can't hold 80,000. The most it ever got was 75,000 with a full stadium and ground filled with standing room. 51,000 were reported in attendance. That’s pretty close to capacity in its current format. I believe 55,000 was capacity.

It's official - the biggest crowd every to watch a basketball game on Australia shores turned out to Marvel Stadium tonight with 51,218 fans streaming through the turnstiles.

"Perhaps... in fact."

Hmmm

If you email promoter on the basis that they advertised players a week after they pulled out you will get a refund. Do it.

I got offered a refund and turned it down. Biggest waste of money ever. Just awful

"The owners of Marvel don't give a crap they just want the money
No good being up in arms of you didn’t factor this in"

These two sentences contradict each other.

"The people who paid $300+ for the seats on the ground and virtually no view of the game deserve refunds without question."

It would suck spending that for a shit view, but what did people really expect though?

It's one of those things where yeah people would want to see, but did they really expect to see much sitting so far back with no seat elevation?

The layout at the stadium has been known since the game was announced (that the court would be raised and there would be temporary floor seats).

I strongly considered a year ago organising to fly to Melbourne for the weekend and go to both games, but at the end of the day thought it would just be shit viewing and teams would lack some big names and not worth it.

The UFC at Marvel and WWE at the MCG had pretty similar layouts and both looked just as shit for viewing.

If the owners/promoters don't give a crap and advertise premium seats at a premium price, it's not up to you to factor in if they are or aren't premium. The onus is on them to not be misleading in their advertising.

You're acknowledging they don't give a stuff about the paying customers, then blaming the fans for it. That isn't how this works.

The biggest NBA stadium is barely over 20k. Why would we need a 45k stadium?

Good luck with the concussion

The ground level seats should have been the cheapest (except the first few rows), with the bonus of being close to such a big event but the downside of having a less than ideal view. People who were in the permanent seating seem to be saying their viewing experience was good.

Should have played it at AAMI Park

AAMI park wouldn't have been much better. Marvel is basically a big AAMI Park when the lower bowl is brought in. There still would have been too much ground space and seating.

If you paid for a seat on the oval you got what you paid for. If you can't work out for yourself your view will be limited that’s on you. Sat on the oval for Adele and saw very little. Didn’t whinge as I knew that would be the case but I paid my money to be there. Basketball sooks need to grow up.

As the NFL says no such thing as bad publicity, nearly 52000 is amazing.

I think people who want to just say "you knew what you were in for" are reveling in the schadenfreude rather than being realistic.

The layout of Marvel was not known or advertised when tickets were first released, and a lot of the 'premium' seats were snapped up at that point.

It's also not impossible to come up with a seating configuration that would have sacrificed numbers in order to provide a better view for those on the ground. Even a slight incline would have helped enormously, and the ground could have been tiered to create that. That would have sacrificed some of the fixed seating, but it would have made the 'premium' seats a lot more premium.

My objection is that if you go to the theatre, a concert, and even some major sporting events, you can buy obstructed view tickets. Often those aren't released until everything else is sold, but they're designated as obstructed view and you know what you're getting. Selling premium seats in the full knowledge that you won't be providing a view of the game is poor form.

IMO, I don't care about a refund. If I couldn't afford the money I wouldn't have spent it, and it was a worthwhile experience, even if the overall execution was underwhelming. My concern is that I wouldn't bother doing it again, regardless of who was playing. If I feel that way, and a lot of others feel that way, and the media coverage has been overwhelmingly negative despite what should have been a good outcome, what happens when BA attempts to do this again in the future? How many of the 50,000 attendees will be back? Is attendance next time going to be 30,000? 20,000? It should have been a showcase and celebration of Australian basketball for fans and media, even if that meant fewer $$ earned. Take a long-term view and grow the game instead of just scrambling for every cent you can get right now.

Did the website state that the court would be raised a metre above the oval seating? If not then no, nobody knew what they were getting into.

I think people just want basketball to succeed no matter what, so they immediately reject any criticism.

"The layout of Marvel was not known or advertised when tickets were first released, and a lot of the 'premium' seats were snapped up at that point."

https://www.usab.com/news-events/news/2018/08/usa-aust-exh-tickets.aspx

There's an arists impression provided by BA here of what the stadium would look like. Pretty much looks like you'd expect really

"Did the website state that the court would be raised a metre above the oval seating? If not then no, nobody knew what they were getting into."

It had been mentioned the court would be raised. The whole raised court isn't the issue anyway, i dont know why people are complaining about it, it would have been a worse view if it wasn't raised. The venue as a whole just isn't suited to basketball.

The court being raised increased the viewing ability for those on the oval.

That's why they did it!

Hahaha you used a rendering of the seating layout as a way of proving that the promoters gave enough information regarding the shitty view? Ok then...

"Hahaha you used a rendering of the seating layout as a way of proving that the promoters gave enough information regarding the shitty view? Ok then..."

I looked at buying tickets but didn't because looking into it for 5min you could see and read how bad it would be. You don't need to be a genius to realise the viewing would be shit.

In all seriousness, what did people expect? A lot of people have asked this question but no one has answered it. I'd be interested to see what someone who is really upset by the view they had expected.

If you paid over $400 for a ticket, you'd reasonably expect to be able to see the game comfortably from your seat. I don't know why this is so difficult for you to understand. The onus is on the promoter to deliver what was advertised, not leave it up to the buyer to make their own assumptions.

Dazz, you can't even work out how to attend a home open without someone telling the time for you so maybe don't lecture others for needing help.

I actually expected them to have slightly raised seating at the floor level, then sell the upper tiers of the stadium. Obviously that would have obstructed the view of the lowest tier (making them unusable) but it would have meant those paying for premium seats would have been able to see.

Ur paying for the experience, noise, atmosphere etc etc
Ofcourse your not going to see the pimples on the players faces.

90% of people watch the game on big screen, thats the experience.

50k ofcourse ur all not gonna smell the players haha.

What an idiotic comment.

Atmosphere + music, cheering etc etc, the whole vibe.

I wonder how much the atmosphere was deadened by the thousands of people at ground level who didn't know what was happening and were busy worrying about how much money they wasted? The parts of the crowd that could see were miles from the court and couldn't be heard by players.

I'll also point out, because I haven't seen this raised, but the video screens were showing the game in the opposite direction to that in which it was actually running, for those on the team bench sides of the arena. If you were trying to toggle between live action and the screen, you had to flip everything in your head every time you shifted from one to the other. I've never been to a basketball game where I was so reliant on the screens to see what was going on, so I can't be sure that's not normal. But it was extremely annoying.