5 Years of NBA Season Tickets: Still Worth It? (And What's Changed?)

I bought Denver Nuggets season tickets in 2019 thinking I was making a smart long-term bet on a young team. Five years later, I've watched Nikola Jokic win three MVPs and a championship, sat in the building for some of the best basketball I've ever seen, and paid a 178% price increase for the privilege. So the question I keep getting asked: was it worth it?

The short answer is yes — but not in the way I originally expected, and not in the way it would be if I were starting today.

What the First Few Years Were Actually Like

When I got in, the perks were real. Meet-and-greet opportunities with players, access to events that weren't available to regular ticket holders, and a secondary market where you could recoup a decent chunk of your costs by selling seats you weren't using. My wife and I couldn't make every game — nobody can — so being able to sell games we missed made the whole thing financially sensible. The pricing also meant that resale had enough margin to work in your favor if you picked the right matchups.

That changed pretty quickly once the team started winning. As the Nuggets got better, face value went up and so did demand, which sounds great until you realize it also means the resale margins shrink. More people want to come to games now, but they're also willing to pay closer to face value to do it, which compresses what you can make on the secondary market. The math that made season tickets feel like a deal in year one doesn't hold in year five.

The Championship Year Was Something Else

I want to be clear that being in Ball Arena when Denver won the NBA Finals was one of the better nights of my life as a sports fan. That's not hyperbole — it's just what it was. That memory is worth something that doesn't show up in a spreadsheet. Watching Jokic on the floor in person for five years, seeing the team build from a fringe playoff team to a championship roster, that's the part of season tickets nobody talks about enough. You develop a relationship with the team that casual fans don't get.

But I'd be skipping something important if I didn't say the overall experience as a season ticket holder has gotten noticeably thinner. The special access and perks that used to feel meaningful have been pulled back significantly. The program has grown, which means the individual holder matters less. It's a volume business now in ways it wasn't before.

The Practical Reality in 2024

If you're considering buying in now, the calculus is different than it was in 2019. You're buying at a much higher price point, the resale upside is limited compared to what it used to be, and the perks are a fraction of what drew a lot of original holders in. You're essentially paying a premium to guarantee your seat at a popular product — which is a fine reason to do it, but go in with clear eyes about what you're actually getting.

The experience still has real value if you're a committed fan who goes to a lot of games and wants the consistency of the same seats. Ball Arena is a good building. Downtown Denver on game nights has energy — after games I've walked over to Larimer Square or down toward Skyline Park and the area around the stadium holds up. It's a good core neighborhood for a night out around a game.

My Honest Take After Five Years

If I could go back to 2019 knowing everything I know now, I'd still buy in — because the championship alone made it worthwhile in ways that are hard to quantify. But if someone asked me today whether to become a first-time season ticket holder at current prices with the current perk structure, I'd tell them to think hard about how many games they'll actually use, run the resale math honestly, and not expect the secondary market to subsidize the cost the way it once could. It's a different product now than it was five years ago. That's not a complaint, just a fact worth knowing before you sign.