If you've been to a Timberwolves game lately, chances are you've noticed good seats are generally available (plenty of blue in that picture from a home game earlier this season). You might have also heard about the "Run with the Pack" promotion the organization launched in earnest at the start of March and is running through the end of the month -- a promotion that offers discounts on season tickets for next year up to 50 percent from what they had been and brings into play 1,200 lower-level season tickets for $10 a game. We were a little curious about the strategy, and we had a chance to speak recently with team president Chris Wright. Here are some of the key takeaways:
*Target Center holds roughly 19,000 fans. The Wolves currently have 6,000 full season ticket equivalencies, and of those 4,000 are in the lower level. A great number of these ticket holders were surveyed, and the result of the survey brought this conclusion: "If we are really going to move the market and embark on an aggressive fan development process, we really have to do something about price," Wright said. He then asked aloud the question we likely would have followed up with: "How do you do that without annihilating your business?"
*The short answer to that question appears to be that if you aren't selling a lot of your available seats, selling a bunch of your seats for less isn't a bad move. "It's a price value play. It's almost like a commodity play," Wright said. "You've got the available inventory. Number one, what do you want to create for your players? You want to create home court advantage. The way to do that is to put a lot of people inside Target Center. Right now we don't have that. The model, to a degree, is broken. ... I would say it's bold. We've turned some heads. We talk inside our operation all the time. The business operation is matching the bold moves of the basketball operation."
*The goal sounds pretty ambitious, and this is not the only step in the process. "We want to try to double our base. That means our lower level gets sold out every game. You can use all the inertia in creating the next thing that happens in your upper bowl," Wright said. "We now have 1,200 seats in the lower level at $10 apiece -- 600 at either end of the arena. We're hoping to get through those seats in a hurry. We're really trying to get our lower level filled. Will we do that all in one summer? A lot of things that need to happen to get to that."
*The next phase will be a different offer likely running from April 1-June 1, Wright said. With the draft lottery slated for mid-May, that offer will give prospective buyers a chance to see where the Wolves are picking. The current offer is trying to either get new people on board or keep them on board with the idea that they'll be part of something on the rise. Whether this part of the plan and other that follow will work remains to be seen, but we don't see how a new approach with a financial incentive to the buyer can fare any worse than the status quo.
