SHOWDOWN:The Knicks’ Carmelo Anthony and the Nets’ Deron Williams (above) will face off tonight. (NBAE/Getty Images)
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Hurricane Sandy blew a lot of green out of ticket scalpers’ pockets.
The average resale price for a ticket to the Brooklyn Nets’ much-anticipated — but storm-delayed — opener against the Knicks at the Barclays Center has dropped nearly 40 percent.
On Oct. 26, nearly a week before the scheduled game date of Nov. 1, the average ticket asking price was an astounding $913.07.
But after Sandy struck Oct. 29, knocking out public transit and postponing what was supposed to be the first hoops game at Jay-Z’s new Downtown Brooklyn crib, ticket prices plummeted.
They’re still high — but not astronomical like last month.
At one point yesterday, the average open-market asking price for a ticket to tonight’s game was $583.82, says Chris Matcovich, senior director of data and communications for TiqIQ, an aggregator of secondary-sale tickets.
That’s a 36 percent drop from less than a month ago.
As for the high and low end of sale prices, pre-Sandy tickets ranged from $7,000 to $236. After the storm, they ranged between $4,250 and $74.50.
The well-to-do basketball fans who spent big bucks on Knicks-Nets tickets before the storm lost, too, Matcovich noted.
“There were plenty of people who bought tickets at a premium, thinking the first game at Barclays would be Knicks vs. Nets,” he said.
But now that other games have been played, they wound up spending money on a “first” that never happened, Matcovich said.
“Unlike plane tickets and other stuff, buying tickets on the secondary market is a risk in the sense that there is no ‘insurance’ available for people in case of unforeseen cancellations like this,” he said.
The Knicks won the season’s first six games and came into yesterday atop the Atlantic Division at 8-3, while the Nets were just a game behind at 7-4.
Since Sandy did relatively little damage to Downtown Brooklyn, businesses near Barclays generally came out OK, with owners saying they expect to be just fine as long as all the games get played.
“We can never get enough business,” said John Brien, owner of Hank’s Saloon, less than two blocks away from the arena.
“We closed one day of the storm. We had trouble getting a lot of deliveries because the vendors came from New Jersey and Long Island, and they couldn’t get in. Now we’re back to normal.”
The Hollow Nickel, a bar just down Atlantic Avenue from the arena, sustained wind damage in its back yard and endured the slow process of getting booze shipments back in order.
Co-owner Steve Labedz is just happy Sandy is in his rearview mirror and hopes plenty of fans will fast-break to his bar tonight.
“I think we’ve pretty much recovered,” Ladebz said.
“A lot of people stay in the neighborhood to hang out [after arena events]. People come down Atlantic and stay for a bit before heading home.”
Both teams might be dragging by the end of tonight’s match.
The Knicks and Nets both played yesterday, with New York beating hapless Detroit and Brooklyn nailing Portland.