As deadline looms, Hornets begin ticket blitz

NEW ORLEANS -- With a Friday deadline looming, Charlotte Hornets co-owner Ray Wooldridge is confident the team will sell 4,700 more season tickets and 14 luxury suites -- sales thresholds that are the key to the team moving to New Orleans.

"I'm absolutely sure we'll meet the goal," Wooldridge said Monday. "We already have more season commitments here than Charlotte does."

The Hornets can back out of their agreement to move the team to New Orleans unless 10,450 season tickets and 54 suites are sold by Friday. The final sales effort will be an effort to eliminate the remaining 4,700 tickets and 14 suites.

Wooldridge said it was a hard deadline contractually, but added that ticket sales were only part of the deal to move the team to the city.

The important thing is to sell the tickets and suites before the seven owners who are members of the NBA's relocation committee visit New Orleans with commissioner David Stern on March 20. Representatives of the NBA's 29 teams are to vote in early April on the team's application to move. The move would go forward if 15 of 29 teams approve.