But, at next week's Asian Youth Games (AYG), the Singapore basketball team skipper may not get that extra boost.
Yesterday, AYG organisers revealed that only 265 of the 1,376 tickets for the four-day basketball competition at Anglican High School had been sold.
Overall, less than 5 per cent of the 51,476 tickets for the inaugural Games have been snapped up to date.
Of the nine sports, bowling has enjoyed the best response, with 327 of the 504 tickets bought so far.
For football, only 639 of the 32,104 tickets for the group stage onwards have been sold. The tournament's preliminaries, which end today, are free of charge.
Table tennis (47 of 7,452), swimming (496 of 5,508) and athletics (255 of 2,964) have not fared well either.
Still, organisers remain optimistic. 'We expect a strong turn-out at the AYG and a large number of spectators to purchase their tickets at the gates on competition days,' said a spokesman.
To boost sales, bulk-buy discounts of up to 50 per cent have been offered to schools and national sports associations.
Daily ticket prices range from $2 to $8 and are available from Sistic.
Please read the full story in Wednesday's edition of The Straits Times.
