Heat, NHL Panthers Exploring New Ways To Sell Tickets

The Heat Paid Tolls As Part Of One Ticket Promotion

With both the Heat and NHL Panthers experiencing attendance drops in excess of 16% since opening their new arenas, the two teams' marketing departments are exploring "new gimmicks to sell tickets," according to Daniel Chang of the MIAMI HERALD. After cutting prices on some season tickets "by as much as half," the Heat have "staged a variety of stunts, such as dispatching" the Heat Dancers and Burnie the Mascot to a toll plaza to pay commuters' tolls. In addition, Heat ticket crews "work phones and push excess tickets on large firms, which sell them to employees at a cut rate or hand them out as perks." The Panthers "have had their players bag groceries at Publix, have given away blankets and wallets and have frozen lower bowl ticket prices at last season's levels." Panthers Exec VP Chris Overholt: "We've already started talking to radio partners about singles nights and boats and bikes nights and talking to NASCAR over the last couple of weeks about how we can promote more aggressively with them." Overholt added, "We've been fighting the Marlins' momentum. The whole market has been consumed by what the Marlins have been able to do." Chang noted both the Heat and Panthers "are staging promotional nights to pay tribute" to the Marlins, "hoping to tap into the feel-good aura" (MIAMI HERALD, 11/8).