The Cleveland Cavaliers still don’t know whether they’ll be in the NBA playoffs. Despite the better-than-advertised brilliance of LeBron James, the team is not one of the top eight teams in the weak Eastern Conference.
But that hasn’t stopped the Cavaliers from aggressively marketing season tickets for 2004-05 in the midst of an oft-frustrating campaign. They recently began seeking commitments from new fans for next season, with a full-fledged renewal effort among existing season ticket holders set to begin this week.
The team is sweetening its request for early money by offering a pair of James-endorsed Nike basketball shoes not yet available to the public if full payment for next season is received by May1. And just a $100 nonrefundable deposit from new season ticket purchasers now gets priority access to playoff tickets and a LeBron bobblehead.
Cleveland is by no means alone. A fast-growing number of NBA and NHL teams are breaking away from a long-held practice of renewing season ticket holders and landing new accounts during the offseason.
The Houston Rockets required a 25 percent payment for their 2004-05 season tickets by March15, and initial renewal notices were sent in February instead of June as usual. The Dallas Stars implemented a March5 early renewal deadline for season tickets, with a two-year price freeze acting as enticement. The Detroit Pistons are offering season ticket-holders a variety of benefits, including a 5percent price break, VIP parking and an autographed player jersey if full payment is sent by May15.
The New York Islanders, who locked up the last playoff slot in the Eastern Conference on Friday, made perhaps the boldest move. Despite playoff gate revenue being crucial to any hockey team’s finances, the Islanders granted free tickets for the first two rounds of the playoffs to anyone who bought a full season ticket by March21.
The offer, believed to be unprecedented, will cost New York as much as $4.25million in lost gate receipts. But team officials said the “Playoff Payoff” promotion more than achieved its goals. The Islanders received another needed jolt of fan buzz. And more critically, 1,500 new season tickets were coupled with a very strong 92.5 percent renewal rate among existing accounts weeks before the current season ends. New York’s season ticket base now stands at more than 10,000, four times the total inherited by owner Charles Wang four years ago.
“The question was, ’What could we do that no one else has done?’” said Paul Lancey, Islanders senior vice president of sales and marketing. “Everybody wants to know what the catch is. It’s very simple. The catch is, they commit to the team. Having something to boost sales with a potential lockout coming no doubt helps, but the labor issue was really third or fourth on the list of why we did this. It was really about getting fans to commit to the Islanders.”
The reasons for the heightened push for early season ticket money are rather obvious. Early ticket commitments provide a franchise with fiscal stability, the chance to earn interest on those funds and additional time to study ticket holder data to aid in future marketing.
That combination of time, money and information is a powerful lure as most hockey and basketball teams remain quite dependent on season ticket sales and face stagnating fan interest.
The Cavaliers are not among that group of teams facing lagging interest. Rather, the team is on its way to posting the NBA’s largest year-to-year attendance increase since 1981 for a team not entering a new building. But the early season ticket schedule allows them to sell to fans while LeBronmania is still at an apex while also granting more time for installment payment plans that are quickly gaining favor in pro sports.
“The earlier selling schedule is now becoming relatively common across the NBA,” said Len Komoroski, Cavaliers president. “It allows us to be much more in a service capacity rather than simply reactive. So many people want to upgrade or move their seat for next season. You can imagine how difficult that puzzle is to put together if there’s only a couple of months to get it done. We’re always in a sales mode anyway, so doing it this way really fits hand in glove.”
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