http://www.ajc.com/sports/content/sp...ittv_0502.html
The sudden surge of enthusiasm for the Hawks gathered such strength early this week that the team said it sold more than $100,000 worth of new 2008-09 season tickets during Monday's playoff victory.
And there was such demand for tickets to tonight's Game 6 of the series against the Boston Celtics that the Hawks vowed to pack as many people into Philips Arena as the fire marshal would allow.
It seems so abrupt, Atlanta's rediscovery of its pro basketball team.
But there were hints, perhaps widely missed, that a surge was forming.
During the regular season, even as the Hawks posted their ninth consecutive losing record, television audiences rose sharply from the year before.
Telecasts of Hawks games on SportSouth and FSN South posted a combined ratings gain of 85 percent in the metro-Atlanta TV market from the distressed levels of the previous season. Only two NBA teams — the Celtics and the Portland Trail Blazers — had larger percentage gains in local TV ratings.
Albeit less dramatically, attendance at Philips Arena also improved in the regular season, increasing about 700 fans per game — 4.4 percent — to an announced average of 16,281. Perhaps surprisingly, that was the second-highest average in the team's attendance-challenged history.
Such indications of increasing interest in a long-forlorn franchise were validated by the buzz that accompanied the Hawks' victories over the Celtics in playoff Games 3 and 4, played before raucous Philips Arena crowds and ever-larger local TV audiences. Tonight's Game 6 sold out hours before the start of Game 5, which the Celtics won handily in Boston on Wednesday.
"It tells us what we've known all along: that this is a fantastic NBA market," Lou DePaoli, executive vice president and chief marketing officer of Hawks and Thrashers parent company Atlanta Spirit, said of this week's fan fervor. "All we needed to do was give these people a little bit of hope."
Brian Backer, 27, of Sandy Springs, was so moved by the atmosphere in Philips on Monday night that he put a 30 percent deposit on two season tickets on a credit card.
"I think how [the Hawks] played got everybody excited – definitely got me excited about the team next year," Backer said Thursday. "I would love to see that kind of atmosphere during [next] regular season. ... Hopefully, things will snowball."
While the Hawks averaged a TV audience of about 23,000 metro-Atlanta households during the regular season — up more than 10,000 households per game from the year before — viewership has grown five-fold in the playoffs.
Through the first four games of the Celtics series, the combined average Atlanta TV audience for the telecasts on TNT, ESPN and SportSouth was about 125,000 households per game. The average rating for the first four playoff games was 5.4. The rating represents the number of households watching per 100 TV households in the market.
In the regular season, the 45 Hawks games on SportSouth posted an average Atlanta rating of 1.02, more than double the year before. And the 30 games on FSN South posted a 0.95 rating, up 51 percent.
Jeff Genthner, vice president and general manager of SportSouth and FSN South, attributed the ratings gain to the Hawks drafting Al Horford, trading for Mike Bibby and making the playoffs for the first time in nine years.
"At the end of the day," Genthner said, "it's the product on the court, the ice or the playing field that has the greatest single impact on ratings."
That was borne out — to SportSouth's and Atlanta Spirit's chagrin — by Thrashers ratings this season. The Thrashers started 0-6 and finished with the NHL's third-worst record, and their already-tiny local TV ratings plummeted to a league-worst 0.14. The average Atlanta audience for Thrashers telecasts on SportSouth this season was about 3,200 households.
By being swept in their first-ever playoff series last year, the Thrashers failed to capitalize on a chance to expand their fan base. The Hawks believe their two home victories against the Celtics, who had the NBA's best regular-season record, will provide much momentum for the franchise — no matter what happens tonight and in a possible Game 7.
The three sold-out home playoff games will help the Hawks' fiscal bottom line. Although the NBA takes 45 percent of each playoff gate, postseason play is a boon to teams because it provides additional revenue without additional player salaries.
But even if the Hawks make somewhere around $2 million on this series, the team hopes that will be dwarfed by the impact on future sales.
Toward that end, DePaoli promises to have every member of Atlanta Spirit's sales force at the arena tonight, seizing the moment, peddling 2008-09 season tickets.
Playoffs take interest in Hawks to another level
Linear Mode
