Alright, so like I said, I went here last night at my sister's request. I may have stated this before in this thread, but she plays AAU basketball, plays the NBA 2K games and likes both the NBA and WNBA (WNBA is represented here), so she is squarely in their target demo. As am I. I'm a big Celtics fan and have been for about 15 years since I really started liking sports.
So we bought our tickets, signed our lives away (they make you sign a waiver since there's a lot of running and jumping going on) and entered. As we entered we were told that we could come and go as we pleased. So if we got hungry or wanted to take a break, we could leave and then come back (quick note: they sell NO food or drink inside the venue). It was 6PM when we entered. I'd be being generous if I said that the venue was lightly crowded when we got there and moderately crowded when we left later on at night around 9:30 (keep in mind, yesterday was a Tuesday).
The first thing we did was personalize our tickets to our skill set. You have the choice of either Beginner, Intermediate or Advanced. I picked Beginner, my sister picked Advanced. This affects how easy/hard certain things will be for you throughout the experience. Then we took our picture with some of the replica NBA Finals trophies, locked at the mock locker room area etc. All of that stuff has interactivity elements throughout it. Those things were more like exhibits though, so we moved on to the real stuff. I think it'll be simpler and more easy to read if I break each individual thing down below and give my opinion rather than lumping it together.
1st Floor
Combine - As the name suggests, this simulates a draft combine. There's three components to this. Measuring your wingspan, measuring your standing jump (with extended arm), and your shot. You pick a basketball (they have different size basketballs for kids and adults) and you get a practice shot and then 5 that count towards your score. After shooting, there's a machine that shoots the ball back to you so you don't have to chase it down. By the end it shows you how you did in every category. We did this about 4 times as my sister and I were competitive on the shooting portion and there was either no line or there was open lanes, so we could keep going again.
Film - This is more of a laid back area. There's two 7-minute films in this area, made by ESPN Films, although there's no seating inside. One of them was basically an NBA promo video (although done in a clever way) and another was a much more ESPN 30 for 30 style Film about NBA Player Jrue Holiday and his wife, who got a brain tumor mid-pregnancy.
2nd Floor
Shoot! - This area was easily one of the most popular. I did it many times and my sister did it way more than me. There wasn't a line much until it got later, but even then, this is a quick, 15 second basketball exercise. Basically you stand on the logo of your favorite team that you picked and then when the CM says go, the clock starts and the goal is to go through the course and get to all five spots on the floor within the 15 seconds while making as many shots as possible. This is one of the areas that goes by player level you selected earlier (I selected Beginner as I said, but changed to Intermediate for this specific activity.
Dribble - This was the most challenging for me. Basically, you pick up a basketball and fallow what the guy on screen is doing. There's a camera that is tracking to see if you are doing it correctly or not. There's 5 total levels, I made it to level 4 before I gave up as you have to dribble between your legs on that level. That wasn't happening. (although my sister managed to complete the whole thing on a harder skill level than me
)
Dunk - Right next door to dribble is Dunk. It's fairly straight forward. You tap the card they gave you upon entry to start the clock and you get 60 seconds to do whatever. You also can move the hoop up and down anywhere between 7' and 10'. There are many cameras recording and taking pictures of you in here that go onto your card.
Slingshot! - This was kind of more arcade-ish, but still fun. You use a dodgeball to try and slingshot into the many hoops around you. Highest score at the end wins. If there wasn't a line or even if there was but others left and there was still enough open slingshots to where you could stay, they would let you (which was most of the time). This one was pretty popular too as the entire family could easily participate in this.
Replay - This was sort of a unique thing as a fan of the game. Basically you watch film of a play and determine if the call that was made was correct or not. They give you four different angles to look at the play from and then they tell you if you got it right or wrong. We did it twice and it was different things that we were "reviewing" both times. I realize this is probably boring for most people.
Trivia - Self explanatory. NBA and WNBA trivia. Highest score at the end wins.
Arcade - There was a mini-arcade that had two versions of the Pop-a-shot arcade game along with multiple NBA video games. Pop-a-shot gets addicting when you can just do it over and over again, so we did this a decent amount.
Draft - There's a photo op where you can get your picture with a wax version of NBA commissioner Adam Silver, drafting you as the #1 pick.
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So that was my time there. We spent about 3.5 hours there and we were TIRED by the end. The place definitely can wear you out. I definitely had a good time and I know my sister had a good time... but the other side of the coin is my mom was there too and there was things she didn't do like Shoot!, Dribble, and Dunk because of some actual basketball skill being required or simply just the over-exertion.
Again when we walked out, the store was very crowded like I said last week, but the inside wasn't all that busy. I do wonder what it's like on a weekend. The crowd there was definitely not your typical "Disney" crowd. There was a lot of people who actually seemed to know how to play who were there and it's a very active environment, which really is going to keep the scooter and wheelchair crowd out i'm guessing. That's actually what the waiver is for, signing that you're in good physical shape to do it and basically that you won't sue.
I just see this as a very limiting experience. I personally walked out having a good time, yes, but I also walked out worried for it's long-term sustainability. My mom has mentioned multiple times that they should create a form of annual pass for this place and I agree. My sister would lover to pay a little more to be able to go back all year and in turn they would get my mom and probably me too.