Bobcats Unveil Program To Grow Relationships Between Season-Ticket Holders

The Bobcats Friday unveiled the CATS365 initiative for season-ticket holders, which seeks to connect team partners on a year-round basis outside the game of basketball. The goal is to facilitate relationships between season-ticket holders and form a social community geared toward their interests. The program revolves around five pillars individually designed to enhance the season-ticket holder experience: community involvement, out on the town, family time, business networking and athletic focus (Bobcats). SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL’s John Lombardo notes each of the categories will have “around 10 different events offered to buyers, who will have no limit on the number of events they can attend.” Among the events the team will offer "are golf lessons, movie nights at Time Warner Cable Arena, fantasy camps, UFC fight nights, volunteer opportunities, and business networking events.” The program is a new and “more tightly packaged approach to the growing trend among teams looking to increase the value of a full season ticket.” But the Bobcats’ approach is “novel in that it ties into a deeper schedule of off-court events targeting various interests and all programmed under a specifically marketed renewal product.” Bobcats Exec VP and Chief Sales & Marketing Officer Pete Guelli said, “We tested it last year throughout the lockout and that has manifested itself into the new program.” The team “presented its new product to the league during last month’s sales and marketing meetings” (SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL, 2/13 issue).

NEW DUDS, SAME TEAM: The Bobcats Saturday wore throwback jerseys in honor of the ABA Carolina Cougars, and in Charlotte, Rick Bonnell wrote if the Bobcats “had to go the throw-back jersey route, maybe they should have chosen the Washington Generals.” Even with the uniform change, there was “no disguising the Bobcats' trademark deficiencies” as the team lost its 14th straight game (CHARLOTTE OBSERVER, 2/12).