Hey Tim! What were the numbers from last night? I was very disappointed with the low turnout. What do you think happened? W’s are important for increasing fan support, but you can’t count on winning every night. But I know Rudy and the boys are gearing up for a long win streak from February on! When can we expect to see a full on media blitz? Y’all need to be on all the guy stations like KKRW, KLOL, and KTBZ! A few years ago we used to hear all sorts of cool promotions with Dean and Rog and The Buzz. What happened? Seems like they barley even mention the rockets anymore. I think you guys need to seriously talk to these stations. I’m sure they would love to do some promotions like a guys night out and make it really fun. Outlaw Dave on KLOL loves the rockets. He would bring out a bunch of his listeners. Especially if there are some Power Dancers in the mix! The billboards were OK, but I still think Pasadena Joe didn’t appreciate the Chinese translation. Other than some direct mail pieces what else are you doing? Thanks…….
Our attendance was just over 10,000 last night. We'd obviously like to have more. But it's progress -- last year, 3 of our first 4 games were under 10,000. Last year's season opener was only about 9500, but this year's was a sellout. We're not there yet, but it's progress. Our approach to tickets this year -- to make a lot of mini-plans available so that fans could come back into the family -- is going to result in attendance that is "spikier" than in the past. On games where the mini-packs are focused, you'll see a surge. On games without much mini-pack sales, you'll see a valley. Sellouts create excitement, and one of our goals was to increase the number of sellouts. The Seattle game had the misfortune of being a mid-week game sandwiched between two good weekend draws, opening night and Hakeem's jersey retirement. A lot of fans are coming to both of those, and coming to the middle game is tough for some folks. As for support -- you mentioned the direct mail, which we increased by a few hundred percent this year, and the billboards, which we haven't done in the past, either. In addition to our in-game inventory, we've been running TV spots in cable news and sports programs. We will be buying radio on many of the stations you listed, but our research told us that radio was better at driving individual game tickets around key promotional nights than it was at driving season ticket sales, where newspaper and direct mail tend to be more effective. So our radio was always geared to kick in after the season got under way. Hope that helps explain some ... got to run, but I'll check back in later. Tim
Come on now … what’s up with the sophomore comment. You’ve gotta do better than that. I’ve been called a hater for my comments, but at least I come with ideas and suggestions. We don’t need the snide remarks. I’ve heard that the rockets organization can be a tough place to work. I’m sure Tim and his staff is doing everything they know to do to turn this thing around. Tim, hang in there buddy!
