With five minutes left in Game 2 of the NBA Finals, security personnel at San Antonio’s Frost Bank Center approached Rodolfo “Rudy” Lopez.
“Are you Mr. Lopez?” they asked.
The South Side business owner thought he was being summoned from his seat for some kind of public recognition. After all, he’d been a Spurs season ticketholder for 15 years, and he had paid for a commemorative “Lopez family” paver displayed outside the arena.
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He was in for a surprise. The security guards were there not to praise Lopez but to banish him. They escorted him and his 12-year-old son to the rear of the arena and told him they were being ejected because Lopez had resold tickets outside Ticketmaster, the team’s authorized marketplace.
Five days later, on June 10, Spurs Sports & Entertainment sent him a “Notice of Trespass” revoking his four season tickets and banning him from the Frost Bank Center, The Rock at La Cantera, Toyota Field and other SS&E properties for an entire year.
READ ALSO: What does it take to get banned from the NBA? These people could tell you.
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It was part of a broader Spurs crackdown on season ticketholders accused of violating resale rules during the 2026 playoffs. Those affected include longtime customers who say the team offered no specifics about what they did wrong. Some have protested, insisting to the Spurs in correspondence that they resold their seats via Ticketmaster and are being punished without cause.
Asked for comment, Spurs spokesperson Liberty Swift referred the San Antonio Express-News to the team’s terms of sale, which forbid raffling or auctioning off tickets or reselling them through “unauthorized secondary market sites.” The document advises customers that buying and selling of season tickets “is actively monitored across all resale platforms.”
Sports teams rigorously police resale activity for various reasons. Requiring ticketholders to use approved channels guarantees teams a cut of resale transactions and allows them to collect names, emails and other information for marketing. Franchises say an added benefit is enhanced security within arenas: Management knows who will be in each seat and can prevent fans who have been banned for misconduct from sneaking back in.
It’s also a way to thwart counterfeiters and other scam artists, whose deceptions could damage a team’s brand.
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As Lopez learned, the punishment for violating resale rules can be severe, and customers have limited recourse. A season ticket is not the purchaser’s personal property; under the fine-print terms of sale, it’s a license to attend games, and it can be revoked with or without compensation, depending on the circumstances. The terms of sale say ticketholders must resolve disputes with the Spurs through arbitration, not lawsuits.
Rodolfo “Rudy” Lopez, a Spurs season ticketholder for 15 years, learned from this letter that his season passes had been revoked and he had been banned from the Frost Bank Center for a year.
Mark Burnett, a San Antonio Spurs super fan who runs the “Spurs Sixth Man” accounts on Instagram and Facebook, said he has been hearing from season ticketholders whose privileges were recently revoked or suspended.
“This official notice started hitting inboxes just after noon on July 8,” Burnett said in a social media post. “From what I’m hearing, the majority of affected members hold 10-game packages. Many are insisting they did not violate any resale rules and are now waiting on responses from their ticket reps after pushing back on the emails.”
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Lopez, 49, acknowledges that he resold Spurs tickets in online raffles, including one that raised money for funeral costs for Jose Luis “Joey” Rodriguez III, 17. The teenager fell from a vehicle on May 28 during a Spurs honking celebration on the South Side, suffered a severe brain injury and died five days later at University Hospital.
The one-page notice Lopez received from SS&E, signed by Spurs general counsel Bobby Perez, said he had been declared persona non grata “due to your breach of the NBA Fan Code of Conduct and non-compliance with the terms and conditions applicable to your season ticket membership.”
The letter concluded by saying that if Lopez set foot on SS&E property during his year-long exile, he would be considered a trespasser.
Swift declined to specify what provisions of the code of conduct Lopez had disobeyed. She did say the organization’s action was not related to Lopez’s fundraising for the Rodriguez funeral.
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Lopez said he did not realize the Spurs prohibit raffles and other resales outside approved platforms. He denied ever violating the code of conduct, which bars abusive language, fighting, interfering with a game and other disruptive behavior.
‘Through thick and thin’
A fan who asked to be identified only as Amalia told the Express-News her season passes were also yanked. She said she had been a season ticketholder for more than 10 years.
A July 8 letter from the Spurs informed Amalia that the team had reviewed her ticket resale activity and determined that she violated Section 12 of the ticket terms. Her season-ticket membership was revoked, and the notice said she was not eligible to renew her season passes or purchase a Spurs playoff package for the 2026-27 season.
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Her notice, unlike the one sent to Lopez, did not ban her from the Frost Bank Center, and it stated that she could still buy single-game tickets for the regular season and playoffs.
Amalia, 64, said she had sold about 90% of her tickets this past season because her overnight work schedule prevented her from attending many games. But she said she used the Spurs’ authorized resale portal, as she had for years.
“I did it through Ticketmaster, just like I’m supposed to,” she said.
She replied to the Spurs by email on July 8, saying she had resold her tickets “through the proper channels.” In a reply email dated July 9, the team said its determination “remains unchanged.”
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Amalia said she suspects the Spurs have become more aggressive about revoking tickets now that demand has increased due to the “Wemby effect” and the team’s playoff run.
“I don’t know that it’s greed, but I think it’s money over loyalty,” Amalia said. “We’ve been there through thick and thin, and now our season tickets are gone.”
Spurs guard Dylan Harper drives to the basket against New York Knicks guard Mikal Bridges during Game 5 of the NBA Finals at the Frost Bank Center. It was the Spurs’ first Finals appearance since 2014.
Sam Owens/San Antonio Express-News
Facebook ‘waffle’
Lopez owns a sports bar, event spaces and other South Side businesses. In 2021, he made an unsuccessful bid for the District 3 city council seat. He considers himself one of the Spurs’ most loyal fans and said his name appears on a gold wall honoring people who have held season tickets for more than 10 years.
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This year, his four seats cost him $45,000 for the regular season, and by the time the Spurs reached the NBA Finals, he had spent an additional $25,000 to $30,000 on playoff tickets, he said.
As proof, he shared screenshots of payment confirmations for $26,557.89 in Spurs-related charges between April 2 and June 10. He said he could not retrieve his full account history because he was locked out of Ticketmaster after the Spurs revoked his season ticket membership.
During the team’s six-year string of losing seasons, he could barely give his seats away, Lopez said. This year, however, they were in high demand.
It was the team’s first appearance in the NBA championship round since 2014. Lower-level seats at the Frost Bank Center were selling for many times their face value on Ticketmaster. The opening game of the finals against the New York Knicks was scheduled for June 3.
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The day before the game, Lopez promoted on Facebook what he called a “waffle,” a code word for raffle commonly used on Facebook to avoid the platform’s automated content filters. The post advertised 100 “spots,” or chances, at $100 apiece. The prize: two Game 1 seats in Row 7 of the arena’s lower level. The drawing’s second-place prize was $1,000 in cash, and third place was $500, according to the Facebook post.
Lopez said that on June 3, he had a change of heart about keeping the raffle proceeds and decided to reach out to Rodriguez’s family. He had seen reports online that the Spurs organization or star forward Victor Wembanyama had offered to pay the family’s funeral expenses. The teenager’s mother, Erica Rodriguez, told Lopez the reports were unfounded and that they had received no offers of assistance.
Lopez said he offered to help cover the cost of the funeral.
Rodolfo “Rudy” Lopez, right, with Jose Luis Rodriguez II and Erica Rodriguez, the parents of Jose Luis “Joey” Rodriguez III, 17. The teenager suffered a fatal brain injury during a Spurs honking celebration in May. Lopez helped pay the family’s funeral expenses.
Courtesy Rudy Lopez
“GOD WORKS IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS,” he said on Facebook that day. “ALL PROCEEDS FROM THIS WAFFLE NOW WILL GO TO PAY ALL FUNERAL EXPENSES FOR JOEY RODRIGUEZ.”
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Lopez said the “waffle” raised about $3,000. He estimated the total cost of the funeral at $10,000. He planned and emceed the June 16 service at PicaPica Plaza, a South Side event space he owns, and he solicited neighborhood businesses to donate floral arrangements, balloon columns and Spurs-themed decorations.
“I didn’t sell the tickets for profit,” Lopez said. “We did this for the family of the kid who died.”
‘I want to know why’
A review of Lopez’s activity on Facebook shows he advertised Spurs tickets for sale, raffle, or giveaway in at least five separate promotions during the 2026 playoffs. And it wasn’t the first time: He did it in previous seasons dating back to 2018, his social media posts show.
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Lopez said that this year, some social media users warned him he was taking a risk.
“A lot of people were posting, saying, ‘Hey, the NBA is going after season ticket members. Be careful how you sell them,'” Lopez recalled. “And we’re like, ‘All these years, we’ve been able to sell them or give them away however we want. Why would it be any different now, especially since we’re paying way more money now?'”
Rodolfo “Rudy” Lopez speaks during the funeral for Jose Luis “Joey” Rodriguez III, 17, at PicaPica Plaza. Lopez donated the use of the event space, which he owns, and covered other costs of the funeral. Rodriguez suffered a fatal brain injury during a Spurs honking celebration on May 28.
Andrew J. Whitaker/San Antonio Express-News
He said he wishes the Spurs had contacted him privately to explain the problem before removing him and his son from the arena during Game 2 of the finals.
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Lopez said he still does not understand how he violated the NBA Fan Code of Conduct. He said security personnel told him only that he had resold tickets improperly.
Lopez said an attorney friend advised him to write the Spurs’ legal team to request a full explanation.
“I want to know why,” Lopez said.