The buzz of the Hornets has been relentless.

From the moment team owners George Shinn and Ray Wooldridge announced in January that -- pending league approval -- they would move their National Basketball Association franchise from Charlotte, N.C., to New Orleans, local fans and residents have been asked to prove what the politicians have been saying: The New Orleans region can support an NBA team.

It was the start of a full-court sales push. The Hornets put their season ticket hotline on billboards. They held open houses at the New Orleans Arena to allow fans to pick their seats. They asked law firms, banks, construction companies and other corporations to put deposits on $100,000 luxury suites, or sign up for courtside season tickets at $10,000 each. They launched a newspaper, television and radio advertising blitz.

All of it is designed to impress upon the NBA that New Orleans is the best place for the Hornets to play next season.

Whether the league agrees comes down to two days. One of them is April 9, when 29 members of the NBA Board of Governors will vote on the Hornets' proposed move.

The other is Wednesday.

Seven NBA executives, each the owner or chairman of a league team, will arrive in New Orleans for a one-day visit. Armed with market consultants and accompanied by NBA Commissioner David Stern, the group led by Phoenix Suns chairman Jerry Colangelo will put the city through its paces.

They will tour the arena, meet with business, city and state leaders. They will meet privately with Shinn and Wooldridge.

They may not leave with a conclusion reached, but they will have a first impression. And ultimately, they will make a weighty recommendation, one the other league owners are likely to support.

Local leaders, who have pointed to landing the Hornets as a key element of the city's economic future, say they will show the relocation committee a different side of the city. Although New Orleans is legendary as a host to Super Bowls, Final Fours, conventions and Carnival, it has lagged behind the fast-growing cities in the South in attracting business. The NBA group undoubtedly will question the city's small-market status -- from television market to per-capita income -- and local leaders say they are prepared to prove the New Orleans region is on the rise.

"This is not just about basketball, but long-term economic development," said state Rep. Mitch Landrieu, D-New Orleans, who will assist in the presentation by state and city political leaders. "The Hornets are just a piece of a very large, comprehensive economic development strategy. We have to step forward and show them that this community can become a big-league city."


Selling the region

The relocation committee will visit New Orleans, but local leaders will give them an economic glimpse of Baton Rouge and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, too.

The Hornets say they will promote the team within a 75-mile radius of New Orleans in hopes of cultivating a market more attractive to the league. Two weeks ago, the team mailed 75,000 pamphlets to households within the radius, asking them to consider buying season tickets.

Such an approach is important, because the committee will bring with it a team of consultants to analyze statistics such as television market, median income, population and the arena and the team's lease.

The league does not divulge which factors it considers most important.

"We have procedures and policies of our constitution, and no one issue we consider is going to be bigger than the other," said Russ Granik, NBA deputy commissioner.

Judged alone, New Orleans would be the league's smallest television market, ranking 43rd nationally. In terms of population, it would rank near the bottom, with Memphis, Tenn., and Salt Lake City, with 1.3 million people in the metro area.

New Orleans also would be low in the league in terms of household median income. With an average of about $26,000 per year, it ranked 225th nationally among cities last year.

Those numbers have hurt the city, which, since the Jazz left for Utah in 1979, has experienced two failed attempts to attract an NBA team. In 1994, the league ruled against a plan to move the Minnesota Timberwolves here when it rejected the prospective new owners as financially unfit. Last year, New Orleans lost out to Memphis in a bid to attract the Vancouver Grizzlies.

New Orleans leaders say the difference this time is the package being offered to the Hornets. As for the market, their goal Wednesday is to show the league not only what the city has to offer now, but where it and the surrounding region is headed.

The population, for example, swells to about 2.4 million if a corridor from Baton Rouge east to Biloxi, Miss., is included, and the Hornets say they will operate additional ticket centers and seek business support in both locations. A regional television network also would raise the market's stature, although officials could not give an estimate of how much higher it would rank.

"Obviously this visit is critical because you want to make a good first impression," said Doug Thornton, general manager of the New Orleans Arena. "We want them to see the arena and the upgrades planned, and we want them to get an understanding of our regional marketing strategy and the future growth potential of our economy."

When the team announced its relocation plans in January, it set a March 15 deadline for the New Orleans area to meet benchmarks on season ticket sales: 8,000 season tickets, 2,450 club seats and 54 luxury suites. If those levels were not met, the team held the right to walk away from the deal.

The sales effort came close. Hornets officials said they were pleased, considering the team was slow getting its operation running and that sales were hampered the first few weeks by the Super Bowl and Carnival.

On Friday, the team announced it had commitments on 55 luxury suites and 8,121 season tickets.

"We're still going to push to get our season-ticket numbers as high as we possibly can to create a strong impression on the relocation committee," said Alex Martins, director of the Hornets' business operations in New Orleans. "We want to put together an entire package that would be impressive."


Looking ahead

New Orleans officials say that although the Hornets are just one business, they are crucial to the city's efforts to portray itself as more than a good-times town.

Research shows that professional sports franchises can have a powerful impact on how people view a place, said Stephen Perry, Gov. Foster's chief of staff.

Foster and Perry will detail to the relocation committee how the state intends to improve Louisiana's economic standing over the next 20 years.

Landrieu said the presentation will touch on the planned expansion of the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, plans for a $150 million biomedical complex to be built in New Orleans, a proposal to improve the UNO/Northrop Grumman Maritime Technology Center of Excellence, and a new $40 million facility at Northrop Grumman.

The Hornets would improve the quality of life, give the region more national exposure and work as a catalyst to attract more businesses, officials say. In most NBA cities, for example, businesses use their luxury suites to entertain clients, an easy sell in a destination city such as New Orleans. The NBA also has global appeal and big-name stars.

Last month, University of New Orleans economist Timothy Ryan completed a financial impact study commissioned by Foster and the Superdome Commission. It concluded that the Hornets would bring a $54 million annual boost to the local economy and bring $6.6 million in tax revenue.

"This is more than sports, this is big business," said New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial. "The Hornets are a $300 million, high-profile business, and this is something that puts us better on the map."

Bill Hines, chairman of Metrovision, the economic development arm of the New Orleans Chamber of Commerce, also will make a presentation on the city's economic potential during the next three to five years.

"This is a self-esteem issue for the area, and this meeting is crucial," Hines said. "There is no reason why we can't grow like Charlotte grew. We are going to show the NBA a dynamic New Orleans region economy and how we're going to regrow ourselves in the next five to 10 years."


Struggles in Charlotte

It is ironic that in New Orleans' quest to get the Hornets, another factor working in the city's favor may be Charlotte. Although Louisiana still battles a reputation as a place where politics often has thwarted economic development, Charlotte's efforts to keep the Hornets have been surprisingly fractured.

Louisiana officials, meanwhile, went after the team aggressively and have appeared unified throughout the negotiations. Indeed, when the relocation committee meets with elected officials on Wednesday, Foster and New Orleans Mayor-elect Ray Nagin are expected to attend, along with numerous state legislators and officials from Orleans and Jefferson parishes.

It is a vastly different reception than Shinn and Wooldridge get these days in North Carolina. Viewed by many in the community as heavy-handed in their efforts to win taxpayer support for a new arena, they are regularly blasted in Charlotte media. Fans, possibly taking the view that supporting the team is akin to supporting the owners, have made their displeasure known by not attending games. Although the Hornets were once a perennial league leader in attendance, they are last this season.

Charlotte officials even have drawn the ire of the NBA, which sharply criticized a city plan to tie any new arena deal to a demand that Shinn and Wooldridge sell the team. Even Stern, who prefers that teams not relocate, took issue with the city's slow-footed approach and apparent unwillingness to negotiate with the Hornets' owners.

Shinn and Wooldridge, meanwhile, have said repeatedly that the Hornets are not for sale.

Along with the dwindling crowds, several corporate sponsors have pulled their support, Wooldridge said. And there still is no substantive plan to replace the Charlotte Coliseum, the Hornets' home arena, which has only 12 of the luxury suites that NBA teams view as critical to economic success.

In the end, what matters most is team revenue. In that category, New Orleans has the edge. Wooldridge said that the Hornets lost $15 million playing in Charlotte last season and that if the team is still in the Charlotte Coliseum next year, the number will grow to $20 million. Under the incentives guaranteed in the New Orleans Arena lease, the team would turn a profit, he said, if certain sales benchmarks are met.

With multiyear commitments on 55 of 64 luxury suites, corporate partners and growing season ticket sales, Wooldridge said he's "ready to get started with the relocation committee meetings."

"Based on the numbers we have, this region has the numbers to support an NBA team," he said. "We're going to present a five-part package that includes season tickets and luxury suites, our lease agreement, the arena, corporate partners, the state and city governments working together. We're going to tell them the fabulous story about New Orleans to convince them the city is in an economic renaissance."