Local sports radio host Mark Packer wants fans to pack the Hive tonight to show that Charlotte remains a good basketball town -- and to honor a 17-year-old fan who died in November.

The Hornets, though, aren't helping.

Their owners want to move the team to New Orleans. And Packer says the Hornets have refused to help him fill the Coliseum with fans for tonight's game against the Indiana Pacers.

"In the past, the Hornets have been very good at getting us anything we need," Packer said. But not this time: No discount tickets, no special promotions -- beyond those they're already offering -- not even permission to broadcast his show from inside the building.

"The answer has been, `no,' across the board. Maybe they're hoping this will fail," he said.

Hornets spokesman Harold Kaufman said the team has previous commitments to other sponsors tonight. "We want to protect the integrity of the deals we have already," he said.

Those sponsors include WBT-AM and The Observer, which has a regular Friday night discount promotion this season.

And while Kaufman wouldn't go into this issue, there's also the fact that Packer -- known as "Packman" on his raucous WFNZ-AM (610) show -- isn't exactly a fan of Hornets owners George Shinn and Ray Wooldridge.

Packer is urging fans to come out in spite of -- or, perhaps more accurately, to spite -- the owners and their plans to move the team. He started promoting tonight's game soon after the owners signed a deal with New Orleans.

Packer also wants to honor Jeff Grey, a frequent caller that Packer nicknamed "Indiana Jones Jr." Grey, a Vance High School senior who died in a car accident, was a big Indiana Pacers fan. That's why Packer picked a Pacers game for his get-out-the-fans effort.

Packer's show will broadcast from a sports bar across the street from the Coliseum today because the Hornets wouldn't let him do it from the Hive, he said.

After The Observer asked the Hornets about broadcast arrangements Thursday, Kaufman said there had been a misunderstanding: Packer can do his show from the parking lot, he said -- but not inside the Coliseum, because WBT already had a deal for that.

But Packer said he's staying put at the bar because it's too late to change now.

"That've been good to know when I asked them about it three weeks ago," Packer said. "That's why we're at Jocks and Jills."

Kaufman said that as of Thursday afternoon, the team hadn't seen an increase in ticket sales from other Friday nights. He expects 10,000 to 15,000.

"It's the same as the rest of the season," Kaufman said.