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Oak View Group says it surpassed 25,000 NHL season ticket commitments for Seattle in just over an hour

From left, Oak View Group head Tim Leiweke, billionaire investment banker David Bonderman and Hollywood producer Jerry Bruckheimer chat briefly before an interview with the Seattle Times in Seattle on Wednesday. (Ellen M. Banner / Seattle Times)
By Geoff Baker Seattle Times

SEATTLE – If having this city’s NHL season ticket drive compete with what Las Vegas managed was anyone’s goal, that turned out to be a race akin to Carl Lewis facing former Mariners first baseman Dae-ho Lee in a 100-meter sprint.

Las Vegas needed six weeks to top 10,000 season ticket deposits. On Thursday morning, the Oak View Group said Seattle’s drive topped 10,000 in just 12 minutes.

By about 11:15 a.m. PT – only 75 minutes after the drive began – an OVG spokesman said more than 25,000 deposits had been obtained. At the two-hour-mark, they’d surpassed 26,000 and the company indicated it would likely cut off requests by Friday.

While there is no limit yet on how many of the $500 and $1000 deposits will be taken, OVG was encouraging fans to keep plunking down cash before the cut-off point.

One reason is, the deposits are refundable and the full cost of season tickets has yet to be made public. A sizable portion of the deposits could still be taken back once fans are given the full cost of season ticket packages by next year.

Deposits taken Thursday were $500 for “general” season tickets and $1,000 for “club” seats at the lower level center-ice zone between the two blue lines. Those making the deposits will be informed by next week of their priority in line and then invited to a screening of where seats will be and what the actual prices for them are.

OVG sources say the group is aiming for an “average” cost of NHL season tickets and will not gouge the Seattle market. In Las Vegas, the cost of a lower level center ice club seat was $9,460 for 44 home games – three of them pre-season. The cost of the best lower level blue line seats were $5,500, while the best upper deck seats were $3,300 and the cheapest “upper end” seat in the house was $1,100.

So, NHL ticket pricing is not for the faint of heart and the numbers Thursday do not represent what actual final purchases might be. But for a Seattle market trying to show where it stands in its desire for winter sports, it for now has put its money where its mouth it.