After more than two years of fighting to keep their team, Sacramento Kings fans put there money where their mouths were yesterday, overwhelming the team’s ticket sales staff when they opened for business at 9 am.
“We don’t have enough bodies to handle the inbound requests,” Kings Vice President of Ticket Sales Phil Horn told Cowbell Kingdom. “Our initial launch raced at one deposit every four seconds.”
Tuesday marked the first day that new prospective season ticket holders could place a $200 deposit for the 2013-14 season. With interest at an all-time high, the Kings are scrambling to hire up to 40 new ticket sales reps to handle the traffic.
The Kings are way behind the rest of the league in the ticket sales process. With constant uncertainty surrounding the future of the franchise this year, the team withheld renewals until this weekend and then opened the floodgates to potential new seat holders on Tuesday.If the massive surge of ticket buyers wasn’t enough, the ticket sales team performed over 100 interviews Monday and another 80 yesterday to fill those spots. They hoped to have a makeshift staff in place, ready to start the enormous task of finding homes for the massive influx of new ticket requests.
Vivek Ranadivé and his investment group agreed to purchase the Kings from the Maloofs late last week, causing phone lines in the ticket sales office to light up. Sensing the surge in excitement, Ranadivé sent a letter this weekend to existing season ticket holders.
“Today we begin a new era in Sacramento Kings history: new ownership, a new arena and a new Kings community,” Ranadivé wrote. “We will do everything in our power to make this organization one that you can be proud of, both on and off the court.”
There is a lot of work ahead for this group, but it appears that bringing the fans back after a dismal seven-year stretch is going to take care of itself.
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