Thrashers Seeing Early Benefits Of First Playoff Appearance
While the Thrashers still had a few hundred tickets available yesterday for tonight’s playoff opener, the team has begun to see the business benefits of its first-ever postseason appearance. More than 90% of season-ticket holders have renewed for next season, putting the club 10% percent ahead of this time last year. Atlanta Spirit President & CEO Bernie Mullin said new sales of season tickets have tripled since last year. The Thrashers hope to grow beyond 10,000 season tickets by next season. They had a base of 8,000 season tickets before the ’04-05 lockout. Mullin: “It’s a stretch, but it’s something we can achieve” (Tripp Mickle, SportsBusiness Journal). Mullin said of the playoffs, “There is not a huge cash impact from just making the first round. But for each round you advance, the cash impact become more and more significant.” In Atlanta, Tim Tucker notes while a first-round sellout would generate “$1[M]-plus in ticket revenue, a final-round game would generate more than twice as much.” Tucker writes the Thrashers “clearly account for the bulk” of Atlanta Spirit’s $20M operating loss. Ownership has said that Philips Arena “is profitable,” and the Thrashers and Hawks “claim about the same attendance and aren’t far apart in player payroll, yet the Hawks bring in about $30[M] from the NBA’s national television deal while the Thrashers bring in about $4[M] from the NHL’s” (ATLANTA CONSTITUTION, 4/12).
SEEN AROUND TOWN: The Thrashers have also rolled out a citywide marketing campaign tagged “Unleash the Fury,” which Mullin said is designed to reach hard-core fans and appeal to Atlanta’s “social, front-running crowd.” The team will post the motto on 11 billboards around town (two more than during the regular season), wrap it around 75 metro buses and hang it on pole banners downtown. The team hopes that by building awareness of the playoff run in prominent places, it will be able to attract the see-and-be-seen set. Mullin: “We felt we needed to broaden our interest to reach them.” The team is supplementing the effort with a guerrilla marketing campaign that includes a street team passing out posters and car magnets throughout town (Tripp Mickle, SBJ). USA Today runs a sports section Cover Story on the Thrashers.
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| Atlanta Spirit Hopes To Cash In On Thrashers’ Playoff Run |
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