NHL Panthers Offer Ticket Promise Surrounding On-Ice Results

Panthers' Promise Plan Offers Free Games For Ticketholders If Team Doesn't Make Playoffs

The NHL Panthers are offering a "Promise Plan," in which any fan buying a four-game pack of tickets during the end of the regular season "will get four games free next fall" if the team does not make the Stanley Cup playoffs this season, according to Dave Hyde of the South Florida SUN-SENTINEL. The campaign includes billboards featuring Panthers coach Pete DeBoer that read "We Make The Playoffs Or You Get 4 Games Free." Hyde noted this offer is "good marketing" and "shows that the franchise is trying on all fronts this year to make fans and friends and putting its money where its moxie is." DeBoer agreed to go on the billboards, "in essence becoming the face of a franchise that lacks one, though even he said, 'I wish it was a player'" (South Florida SUN-SENTINEL, 2/16).

WORK HARD FOR YOUR MONEY: The SOUTH FLORIDA BUSINESS JOURNAL's Kevin Gale reports Sunrise Sports & Entertainment President & COO Michael Yormark, whose company operates the Panthers' BankAtlantic Center, said that he "wants to sell naming rights" for the arena's rink. No other NHL team has done that, and Yormark said, "We want to be first." Yormark added that he has a "couple of strong candidates," and estimated that he could attract a deal worth $300,000-500,000 annually. Meanwhile, Yormark is "working on another deal to create a VIP circle in the first row next to the ice" at the arena, which would "appeal to businesses seeking elite clientèle" (SOUTH FLORIDA BUSINESS JOURNAL, 2/13 issue).