For the first time since the Hornets moved to New Orleans in 2002, the team has sold more than 10,000 season tickets and is close to selling out the entire lower-bowl area of the New Orleans Arena.
As the team prepares to launch its partial-season-ticket plans next week, the Hornets have exceeded the 10,000 benchmark used league-wide as a measuring stick for success.
"There are a lot of significant things happening, "
Hornets President Hugh Weber said Thursday. "We're within 100 tickets (of a lower-bowl sellout), and we've always said that's a significant objective.
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"And the other very significant goal which is unprecedented for us in this market is surpassing 10,000 season tickets. Very few teams in the NBA accomplish that, and even the large markets have a difficult time doing it. So we're very proud that in this market, we've been able to do what markets five or six or seven times this size have been unable to do."
In New Orleans, the most season tickets the Hornets have sold before the start of the season was 8,000 in the first year of the relocation from Charlotte.
"Again, just to make sure we're calibrating with what we're saying, it's full-season tickets, not partial plans that add up to full season, "
Weber said. "That's a significant increase over anything we've historically done in this market."
That box-office success is only partially attributable, Weber said, to the Hornets' basketball fortunes last season, when the team won a franchise-record 56 regular-season games and captured the Southwest Division championship, also a franchise-first.
"It's not only the on-court success, "
Weber said, "but the connection the fans feel with this specific team and the character of the players on this team. You'll remember we had a team that was a playoff-caliber team the first couple of years we were here. So it takes more than just winning. You have to have a commitment by your players to give back to the community. The community sees that in these young men, and they really want to be part of it in terms of being a season-ticket holder."
With fewer than 200 lower-bowl seats available to sell on a season basis, for the first time the Hornets' partial-season packages, which go on sale Aug. 21, mostly will be upper-level seats.
By placing a $100 per-seat deposit by Thursday, fans will have access to the partial plan select-a-seat event at the Arena on Aug. 22-23, giving them the chance to pick the seats they want to purchase for this season.
Partial plans include two half-season packages and four 10-game plans: a 10-game weekend plan, a 10-game weeknight plan, a 10-game "Superstar"
plan and a 10-game "contenders"
plan. The "Superstar"
plan includes games against the Lakers (Kobe Bryant), Magic (Dwight Howard) and Utah (Chris Paul-rival Deron Williams). The"contenders" plan includes games against top teams in each conference.
"We know there are a lot of fans and businesses that can't invest the time or money to come to all the games and share the tickets with business partners and the like, "
Weber said. "The partial plans are very affordable. Our 10-game plans start at about $145, and the half-season plans start at about $250 or so. We're trying to make sure this is very inclusive for all the community, regardless of your time and budget.
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"And in the upper bowl, it's a different type of fan that wants to sit in the 300 section. But they're walking away knowing the investment they made in that ticket was well worth it because they had a great 2 1/2 hours of fun. Last year, we called it 'The Big Easy Balcony, ' which really isn't what that area is all about. It's really about our most fanatic fans, good times and families."
The area is being renamed "The Loud Quarter."
"It's not a second-rate experience, "
Weber said.
The season-ticket sales should allay fears about the necessary attendance figures required to prevent the Hornets from exercising the opt-out clause in their contract with the state. The team needs to average 14,735 from December 2007 through the end of the upcoming season.
"This will put us in a position to continue the trend we had which was making the benchmark irrelevant, "
Weber said. "The whole point of the benchmark was to create a place-holder where the fans and the community could say, 'Let's define success.' And success was achieving this level on a sustained basis. Ten thousand season tickets makes those benchmarks irrelevant."
