The NBA announced Tuesday that Canada’s only basketball team will be playing at the Scotiabank Saddledome in Calgary Oct. 3 as a part of a pre-season event.
Tickets went on sale at 10:00 a.m. Friday for the game against the Denver Nuggets and almost immediately people took to social media to complain they could not get any seats.
Sites like StubHub started showing ticket requests with people trying to sell a pair of floor seats for as much as $20,000US.
One of the complaints fans expressed was that Calgary Flames ticket holders were offered first dibs.
Get daily news
According to a customer service representative at the Scotiabank Saddledome, a presale code was sent out to all Calgary Flames ticket holders. She told Global News this is a bit unusual in that typically presale codes are reserved for club seat members in certain sections. In this case time was of the essence-the contract was signed with the Raptors Tuesday and the code sent out Wednesday.
Likely contributing to the quick sellout was the price of seats. The ticket prices ranged from $16 plus service charges to $190 plus service charges.
Nobody from Ticketmaster or the Scotiabank Saddledome was able to say how many tickets were available for the game, how many tickets sold in the presale or how many tickets sold after the seats officially went on sale Friday.
The last time the Raptors played in Calgary was in 1996 when they took on the Vancouver Grizzlies.