Even before coach Phil Jackson left, maintaining optimism for the next incarnation of the Bulls was difficult for even the most ardent fan.
The drama surrounding the squad’s starting cast has evolved daily and the decision about whether to renew Bulls season tickets has been much like mulling over whether to purchase a used car: Should you go ahead and shell out a few thousand dollars and just hope for the best?
On Wednesday, with word that Iowa State coach Tim Floyd was joining the Bulls, probably as Jackson’s eventual replacement, the best got a little worse, and some season ticket-holders and Bulls fans fear they might be left with a lemon.
And that’s not to mention the grumbling among ticket brokers and scalpers, whose livelihoods revolve around the street value of a Bulls ticket at the United Center.
“The manager here says he doesn’t want to come to the phone to talk to you about it, OK? He’s too depressed,” an irritable ticket-seller named Mark said after answering the phone at a number listed in a newspaper advertisement for the Sports Ticket Source. He said his agency purchased about 100 Bulls season tickets to resell, presumably at a profit.
Other ticket brokers expressed similar reluctance to discuss the health of their business should Michael Jordan decline to play. All, however, said ticket values, like fans’ expectations, likely will plummet.
Final payment for Bulls season tickets was due Wednesday. For the last decade, the team has sold 14,500 season tickets to about 5,000 accounts and says it has a waiting list of 24,000 fans who want tickets. Bulls officials said they expected nearly all current ticket-holders to renew their orders, despite the uncertainty over next season’s lineup.
For some staunch fans, however, whether to renew season tickets or whether to remain a fan at all required no thought.
Tom Masterson said he’ll still support them, even if the team is led by a college coach from Iowa.
“We got spoiled,” said Masterson, a commercial insurance agent in Lombard who uses his pair of season tickets, which he renewed for $2,520, for both business and personal reasons.
“Everybody wants perfection and you’re not going to get that, especially in Chicago sports,” Masterson said. “Just because you’re not going to win the championship is no reason not to go. You need to look at the whole picture.”
Still, others were less likely to find a silver lining in Wednesday’s news.
Andy Mazza has followed the soap opera surrounding the Bulls’ choice for a new coach with a watchful eye and a heavy heart.
As a fan, he senses the end of an era. But as the general manager of a sports bar in Schaumburg, he also is worried about how patrons will react to Floyd. Will they seek out Mazza’s tavern to watch games if the team’s marquee players refuse to play for the new coach?
“If Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen don’t return, it’s back to having no winning team,” lamented Mazza, a season-ticket holder himself for 11 years.
As for Floyd, Mazza dismisses him as “a college guy. He’s not a pro coach.”
Other fans were more optimistic. Sipping a drink at the Alumni Club’s bar, Bob Schulz called Floyd “a heck of a coach.”
“He took some no-talent kids (at Iowa State) and made them into winners,” said Schulz, a golf pro at the Highland Woods Golf Course in Hoffman Estates.
Schulz said Floyd was the perfect choice to rebuild the Bulls.
“It was time for a change,” he said. “No offense, but the Bulls were getting old. It’s better to bring in a younger coach who can deal with the egos of the younger college kids.”
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Another Alumni Club patron said he appreciated Floyd’s reputation for a being “a firebrand.”
Asked if he would remain committed to the Bulls, Brady Harden, a social worker lunching Wednesday at the Billy Goat tavern near the United Center, shook his head in disgust.
“Nope,” he said. “Not anymore. Not anymore.”