SAN ANTONIO – Victor Wembanyama mania is sweeping San Antonio. Nearly 24 hours after the Spurs landed the top pick in the draft, the interest in season tickets is soaring.
The Spurs have not publicly announced who they will select on June 22, but the French phenom is the consensus No. 1 pick.
The joy of winning the NBA lottery spread throughout the city and the Spurs’ offices at the AT&T Center.
“I felt really great for our entire organization and the city of San Antonio. Being here last night with all the staff to celebrate and then get to work right away was really special. We celebrated for about five minutes and it was a lot of high-fiving, hugs, sips of champagne and then 40 people hit the phones,” said Frank Miceli, chief revenue officer of Spurs Sports & Entertainment.
Miceli said the sales staff is working around the clock as demand for season tickets jumped within minutes.
“We were here until midnight last night working the phones and making sure people’s deposits, the website was working properly and everybody was back at it at 7:30 a.m.,” said Miceli. “We’re projecting by the end of today (Wednesday), so a full 24 hours, we’ll have over 2,500 deposits.”
Lindsay Beale, assoc. vice president of business development, has worked for Spurs Sports & Entertainment for 14 years and said it was a sense of disbelief when the results were announced.
“The work we’ve been putting in the weeks leading up to this to be ready for this moment, it just felt like a dream come true. We’ve all had moments throughout the day over the last 18 hours where we looked at each other and were like, ‘We got the number one pick,’ we’ve been talking about it and planning for it and it really happened. We’re just excited for the city, our fans and our team,” said Beale.
Spurs officials said they have also seen 10 times the amount of normal web traffic and Spurs app downloads since the results of the lottery. Beale said the staff has been busy answering hundreds of questions, calls and requests.
“People want to know how many games they can get. We have a 10-game plan, so it’s a really manageable amount of games to come in a year payment plan. We don’t charge any interest. They can spread their payments up to 10 months,” said Beale.
Spurs officials said fans who place a $100 deposit will get the opportunity to select seating this Saturday and next Thursday, depending on their place in line. Miceli said it could be one of the biggest years in Spurs ticket sales history.
“Until we really go through that process, it’s really difficult to project that, but we’re expecting it to be record-breaking,” said Miceli.