The Heat are offering several incentive packages during
the shortened season, including two free tickets to two
games to every season-ticket account and $10 upper bowl
tickets that include a voucher for free concessions on
opening night. The Heat also announced there will be no
price increase for playoff tickets or for the '99-2000
season (Heat). For next season, the Heat will sell about
3,100 upper bowl seats at its new arena for $5 per game,
cheapest in the NBA. Heat President of Business Operations
Jay Cross said the $5 price "likely" would be available for
half of the team's home games and "possibly more." The $5
seats would be for games against "marquee opponents," and
for other games, the 3,100 seats might be closed off. The
Heat have sold around 9,300 season-tickets this year,
compared with just under 10,000 last season. About 120 new
orders have been received by the team since the lockout
ended on January 6 (MIAMI HERALD, 1/16).
CHARLOTTE: The Hornets plan to pay a 6% rebate for all
tickets used by season-ticket holders this season and will
use bar-coding to track whether or not the game ducats are
used. The team will send out the rebate checks after the
season based on usage of the tickets (CHARLOTTE OBSERVER,
1/18). In Charlotte, Eric Spanberg reported that the
Hornets lost "at least" $10M due to the lockout. The team
was hurt most by $8.1M in lost ticket sales from the
cancellation of 16 home games (BUSINESS JOURNAL, 1/15).
DENVER: Ascent Entertainment "expects to have" the
Pepsi Center's 1,854 club seats, with season-ticket prices
of $5,590 to $8,600, sold out by the time the arena opens.
With companies and individuals buying an average of four
tickets per order, Ascent "has already sold half the seats."
Ascent VP Paul Andrews: "Now that the lockout has ended, we
see renewed enthusiasm" (ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS, 1/15). Club-
seat prices include both Nuggets and Avalanche games.