Charlotte Hornets season-ticket prices going up next year

As the Charlotte Hornets begin selling season tickets for next season, prices are going up by an average of about 9 percent from this year, thanks to higher demand following the team’s post-season success.

Prices at the Spectrum Center’s lower level start at $48 a game, and in the upper level, $12 a game, Hornets executives said this week as the team kicked off its 2017-18 season-ticket selling campaign. Demand is especially high for seats closest to the court, they said.

Hornets President Fred Whitfield said a number of factors have come together to drive demand this year, especially for seats in the lower level, which includes everything below the first level of suites.

“The whole re-branding, all the momentum we gained from that and the team continuing to improve on the floor, 2,000 new full-season tickets the last three years in a row, and renewing at 90 percent last year – we’re just in a place where we’ve got really limited inventory, which is a good thing,” Whitfield said.

Executives say they anticipate tickets for lower level tickets will run out within the next few days. That means likely a lower-level waiting list, something the Hornets have not had to do before, said Pete Guelli, the team’s chief marketing and sales officer.

To create more tickets to sell, some seats will be taken out of the partial-season ticket plan to be converted into full season tickets – also something never done before by the Hornets.

There are a number of perks for fans who buy new season tickets, including discounts on concessions and priority for seats in the event that the team makes the playoffs, the team says.

Experts say growth in season-ticket sales is the most important step in improving a franchise’s health. This season, the Hornets sold 11,000 season tickets – a far cry from the 5,000 sold in 2010 when former NBA star Michael Jordan first bought the team.

The growth in season-ticket sales is a boost for the facility that lost the 2017 All-Star Game over the NBA’s opposition to North Carolina’s House Bill 2, which limits legal protections for LGBT individuals. Hornets executives have said they have had more difficulty booking performances for the Spectrum Center amid the fallout from the controversial measure.

A few other factors are coming together to make Hornets game tickets hot commodities.

Hornets games are among the cheapest for a family of four to attend, according to the NBA’s Fan Cost Index, which measures a slew of factors including average ticket prices, beer prices, food prices, parking, programs and souvenirs.

So far, the team has had five sellout games this year, and executives anticipate No. 6 will be next week, when the Hornets take on the Golden State Warriors and Steph Curry Jan. 25.

The Spectrum Center had 13 sell-outs last year, a season when the team had its best performance since 2001, when the Hornets lost to the Miami Heat in the second-ever Game 7 in Charlotte NBA history.

“When you survey your fans about what they’re looking for, team performance is always No. 1,” Guelli said. “One of the reasons demand has increased is the way the team is performing.”

This story was originally published January 19, 2017 at 6:23 PM with the headline "Charlotte Hornets season-ticket prices going up next year."