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The Los Angeles Lakers were victorious over the Boston Celtics last night by a score of 83-79, ending the Celtics season and giving the Lakers their sixteenth Finals Championship. Throughout these NBA Finals, we have been giving you game recaps, along with the listing prices for tickets on the secondary market for each game. Now that it's all said and done, we wanted to take a look back at the prices for tickets for each game, and compare the data to that of the NHL Stanley Cup Finals.

Both of these series featured two marquee match ups; the Stanley Cup Finals was between the Philadelphia Flyers and the Chicago Blackhawks. The NBA Finals was even more of a dream match up; the Celtics and the Lakers are two of the winningest and most storied franchises in all of sports. Yet surprisingly, especially given the greater popularity of the NBA over the NHL, ticket averages were greater for the NHL Finals than they were for the NBA Finals. The average ticket price for tickets for the Stanley Cup Finals was $718, compared to $699 for the NBA Finals ($633 if you exclude Game Seven).

In the NBA Finals, tickets for Lakers home games went for much more than tickets for Celtics home games. The average prices for tickets in the Staples Center in LA were $817, versus $541 for games in the TD Garden in Boston.

During the Stanley Cup Finals, the average price for tickets was greater for Blackhawks home games than for Flyers home games. In Chicago, the average was $810, whereas the average in Philadelphia was $626.

Television ratings to gauge each sports' popularity aside, it is interesting to see that fans were willing to pay more for NHL Stanley Cup Finals tickets than NBA Finals tickets. I would have expected to see the opposite, considering that basketball is generally considered a more popular sport in the U.S. than hockey.

Nonetheless, hockey season and basketball season have finally come to a close. Actually, with LeBron Mania erupting and causing the world to stop when free agency begins on July 1, basketball season is far from over. Be sure to check back with us at SeatGeek for our take on the LeBron saga, as well as for more sports news and ticketing data.

Questions, comments? Feel free to follow us on Twitter @SeatGeek or send over an email to justin@seatgeek.com.

For several months we have been publishing TicketBeat Reports using SeatGeek's unique data to examine trends in sports and music.  Ticketing data is a window into the true emotions of fans.  Pundits can speculate all they like, but nothing captures true fan sentiment as well as their willingness to pay.  TicketBeat uses secondary market ticket prices to measure how fans are reacting to events in the sports and music worlds.  We have published several reports that have gotten lost in the depths of our website, but we hope to change that with this relaunch.

Past TicketBeat reports:

• Despite No Rings, Eagles Rule The Roost in Philly– Fans Not Feeling the Love (May 7, 2010)
• AL Fans are the Most Passionate in Baseball (April 29, 2010)
• Are Red Sox Fans as Loyal as Conventional Wisdom Suggests (April 22, 2010)
• The Impact of the Recession, Offseason Player Moves, & Payrolls on Ticket Prices (March 30, 2010)
• No Miracle on Ice: Olympic Buzz Has Little Effect On NHL Ticket Prices (March 11, 2010)
• NBA 2010 Mid-Season Ticketing Trends (February 20, 2010)

What to expect:

Moving forward we will be posting these reports directly to our blog to make them more readable and shareable.  We will post two reports per week. We hope you all enjoy! Comment if you have any thoughts/comments or reach out to us on Twitter.  We have included a recent TicketBeat report below as a sample of what to expect.

Recent TicketBeat report:

SeatGeek’s May 7, 2010 TicketBeat™ Report

Despite No Rings, Eagles Rule The Roost in Philly– Fans Not Feeling the Love for Their Gritty Flyers

Summary:

They may show some tough love, but fans of the Philadelphia Eagles show unparalleled support for their football team. When compared to the other four major professional sports teams based in Philadelphia, the Eagles rank high when it comes to fans “paying up” to watch them play. The Flyers, on the other hand, are the only team that fails to rank in the top 10 for average ticket prices in their respective league.  Despite their Broad Street Bully heritage and early season ranking as Stanley Cup contenders, the Flyers appear to be the shunned stepchild of the Philly pro sports family.  Philadelphia is one of the most historically significant cities in the US, and with that comes a deep-rooted tradition of sports fanaticism.  Unlike some major markets, Philly is uniquely positioned to bring home titles, as it is one of the few cities to have pro teams in each of the four major sports leagues. However, prior to the Phillies' 2008 World Series, Philly had not seen a championship from any of their teams since the 1982-1983 76ers’s title run. Even though many of the city’s teams have failed to deliver the ultimate prize, the Flyers are singled out at the bottom of the bunch.

Notes:

• Although Eagles fans are tough on individual players (see Donovan McNabb) they continue to follow their team passionately – ranking 5th in the NFL for average ticket prices.
• The Flyers’ low numbers really jump out when analyzing the percent difference between team average and league average.  The Flyers average only 3% above the league average for ticket prices, while the other major sports teams have a combined average of 22% above.
• Despite repeated losing seasons and disappointment with hometown stars like Allen Iverson, the 76ers continue to peak the interest of Philly fans – ranking 8th in the NBA for average ticket prices.
• After winning the World Series in 2008, Phillies fans continue to come out to the ballpark – ranking 7th in MLB for average ticket prices.
• Philadelphia is the 6th most populous city in the US – the NFL, MLB, and NBA rankings correlate closely with this metric, whereas the Flyers are an outlier at 11th

About SeatGeek

SeatGeek.com is a free innovative search and forecasting web application that helps users save money on sports and concert tickets.  The company aggregates the best available deals on the secondary market and analyzes millions of ticket listings to forecast how ticket prices will move, alerting users on the optimal time to buy. Users of SeatGeek.com could potentially save hundreds of dollars on ticket purchases by using the company’s patent-pending forecasting service.

For additional information or data specific to any MLB, NBA, NFL or NHL team or music artist, please contact @SeatGeek on Twitter or comment on this post.