Panthers try to run up the score on last season.

• Author: Roush, Chris
• Position: Sports Section

Winning, they say, changes everything. But the Carolina Panthers' front office is doing the same things after a Super Bowl appearance this year as it did after the team finished 1-15 in 2001: negotiating player contracts, searching for new talent--and raising ticket prices. Even though it's bumping the average ticket price $7.06--nearly 17%--it expects lingering euphoria to bring in enough fans to beat last year's average attendance of 71,186 for regular-season games, highest in the team's nine-year history.

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That's just one way the team plans to cash in on its success and score record revenue and profit. "The important thing is to perpetuate the excitement," says Max Muhleman, the sports-marketing expert who played a key role in bringing both the National Football League and the National Basketball Association to Charlotte.

The team has taken care of the on-the-field product by locking up key players such as wide receiver Steve Smith and quarterback Jake Delhomme with long-term contracts, Muhleman says. "That maintains the confidence of the market. They are reinvesting in the immediate legacy of the Super Bowl run." More important to the bottom line, however, are some of President Mark Richardson's other moves.

The privately owned team doesn't release its financials, but Forbes magazine estimates that the Panthers generated about $44.9 million of operating income on revenue of $161 million in 2002. Revenue probably went up 10% in 2003, most of it from the 4.5% increase in regular-season attendance and new money from the playoff game it hosted. Raising prices likely will kick that even higher this year, hiking ticket revenue by more than $4 million even if attendance doesn't increase and regardless of whether the Panthers make the playoffs.

The team won't keep all that money. The NFL revenue-sharing agreement splits equally the money from national television contracts--roughly $80 million for each team--as well as 40% of ticket and merchandise sales. But a team does get everything it makes from other sources, including concessions, sponsorships and luxury suites. "It doesn't take a whole lot following a championship season to increase sponsorships and ticket sales, mostly because people want to see a repeat," says Becky Vallet, executive editor of Chicago-based Team Marketing Report, an industry newsletter. "They're willing to come out to those games to hopefully see the team do it again."

Capitalizing on a successful...