Bucking a global trend of rising prices and diminished value for a dollar, particularly in the sports industry, the New Orleans Hornets next season will reduce ticket prices across 81 percent of New Orleans Arena, a move aimed at increasing ticket sales and product satisfaction. Team president Dennis Lauscha said the team has listened to the desires of its current and former ticket buyers and responded to what surveys indicated was fans' primary motivation behind purchasing tickets: value. To that end, 13,598 of the seats in the arena, which currently has a capacity of 16,769, will go down in price for the 2013-14 season, the first with the new nickname of Pelicans, as the team continues to re-brand all aspects of the operation. "Something we talk about a lot here," said Lauscha, who holds the same title with the New Orleans Saints, "is 'why do people buy season tickets?' It's really the foundation of what we look at and what we do. It's based on a number of surveys that are done in the NFL and NBA, really throughout all of sports, I presume.