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Hot (And Expensive) Ticket: Lakers Vs. Heat

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The Heat and the Lakers game in January is the game to watch. (Wilfredo Lee/AP)
Based on ticket prices, when the Miami Heat and the Los Angeles Lakers meet in January it will be the game to see. (Wilfredo Lee/AP)

It is the United States of America, and I have not fallen off any turnip trucks at all, and especially not yesterday, so no story in which a dollar sign is featured and also a lot of zeroes should cause on my part shock or even a little surprise.

But I find that I am hitting my forehead with the heel of my right hand, in a gesture that any citizen will associate with astonishment, when I see before me (on the monitor I am staring at during my working day) the news that two tickets to see the Lakers of Los Angeles play the Heat of Miami on day number 23 of January in 2014 will cost somebody$1 million, if somebody who wants to see that game has more than a million dollars lying around, because there would also be parking and nachos, and perhaps a foam finger.

This cannot be true, I say to myself, and so I tap the keyboard and find that, indeed, I am right. The ticket may have been listed briefly for $1 million by some pirate under an awning that says "Ticket Broker," but now two can be had for $88,002.50, which 50 cents provides the ring of authenticity, or so I am thinking. At $88,002.50, they are just out of reach, except for the "just," and that is also the case at $44,001.25, which assumes that my wife and I go Dutch, though I am handling the nachos.

So I am thinking that Miami would be a fine place for us to wake up on January 23, what with the sunshine and so on, but I will not be courtside, where there would be no sunshine to speak of, but only shouting, and dust from LeBron James clapping his hands, and other indoor matters of importance, or it would not cost as much as a new Volvo sedan to see them from up close, or two Mazdas.

So I am wondering who will rent these seats for the evening, or only one of them if he is not feeling charitable. But this is not something about which I wonder for long, because on the same screen that I previously mention as necessary to this important work, another number pops up. This number is 26, and it is followed by six zeros, because $26 million dollars is what David Beckham was paid last year to be David Beckham, which by no means includes what he is paid to be a soccer player for two clubs. So he can afford the seats and not notice, although I lay 9-to-5 the Heat does not take his money and gives him the nachos as well, he being David Beckham and not me, or also you.

This program aired on October 9, 2013.

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Bill Littlefield Host, Only A Game
Bill Littlefield was the host of Only A Game from 1993 until 2018.

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