The Minnesota Timberwolves has just traded off the face of their franchise, Kevin Love, in exchange for the first draft rookie, Andrew Wiggins yet they still managed to have set a record breaking week for their ticket sales.
With Love gone, Timberwolves has acquired three new players to the team which includes Wiggins, Anthony Bennett and Thaddeus Young. But this isn't just it as the Timberwolves have sold more than 300 full season-ticket packages in the last week.
According to Timberwolves senior vice president and chief revenue officer Ryan Tanke "The organization, from president-level on down has just been re-energized. Part of it is hope, and you have this great new hope."
He added "But then there's also the reality, which is it was a long, tough summer. For it to come to the head that it came to and have it be the outcome that we had, I think it creates this perfect storm environment for us."
Sales representatives were barred from discussing the trade with inquiring fans and the team certainly could not advertise the wholesale changes that were coming. So they would have to wait for another 30 days as the NBA rules stipulated that.
Tanke said "I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a really challenging summer for our sales staff. When you don't have the story to tell, you have to go to painstaking lengths to make sure they don't tell a story and stay off of rumors. We're unable to talk about that stuff so your challenge is compounded when you can't even talk about it."
The players were all unveiled at the Minnesota State Fair on Tuesday where a large crowd had gathered to meet them. Besides the ticket sales, the team also had a record breaking site views online having a new five-day record with 500,000 page views and 200,000 visitors to timberwolves.com.
Owner Glen Taylor commented "'I can't hardly get 20 steps without someone stopping me and saying, 'Hey Mr. Taylor, we're really excited about your team. So I see the enthusiasm among our fans to watch these players. Now, maybe it will be a dunk contest here for a while, but, we certainly have some athletic young men."
