CLEARWATER, Fla. -- Bryce Harper has buried the needle.

Phillies fans might remember general manager Matt Klentak saying over the winter that he wanted to make moves that “moved the needle.” He wanted to upgrade the roster in significant ways, in ways that truly made a difference. Harper became the organization’s biggest upgrade in years Thursday, when he agreed to a 13-year, $330 million contract.

Fans have responded.

The Phillies sold 110,000 tickets on Thursday and 188,000 more in the following four days, including 45,000 on Monday. They expect at least 25,000 to 30,000 fans per game during the team’s 17 home games in April. Last April they had fewer than 25,000 fans in eight of 16 games at Citizens Bank Park.

The season-ticket base has jumped from 9,500 last season to 12,400 and rising.

Saturday’s Grapefruit League game against the Blue Jays at Spectrum Field will be Harper’s Phillies debut. It is a sellout.

“It’s overwhelming, it’s wonderful,” Phillies executive vice president Dave Buck said Tuesday morning. “I knew it would be big, but it’s really big. We’re Philly people, we’ve been through it. A lot of us were here when we won the World Series [in 2008]. Candidly, there is a cumulative effect. Matt has had a really good offseason, so things were building up to this. This is kind of like the icing on the cake. It’s like, wow.”

Business with Bryce is very, very good.

Harper’s press conference on NBC Sports Philadelphia on Saturday ranked No. 1 in the region among key demographics, beating out college basketball and more.

“For a press conference on a Saturday,” Buck said. “That’s really cool.”

The Phillies sold $120,000 worth of merchandise in the first 24 hours at the New Era team store at Citizens Bank Park. An average person typically spends about $20 in the store in the offseason. They averaged $120 over the weekend.

The Phillies got Harper merchandise into the ballpark for the weekend, which was not easy considering he chose No. 3 on Friday. Five hundred Harper jerseys and 1,000 Harper T-shirts sold out. Fanatics said in a press release Sunday that Harper broke the record for the best 24 hours of sales for a jersey launch for any player in any sport. It beat the previous record set by LeBron James’ Lakers jersey. (Giancarlo Stanton’s Yankees jersey held the previous MLB record.)

Fanatics said sales of Phillies merchandise jumped more than 5,000 percent compared to the same day last year.

The Phillies lit the city in red Saturday night, including Boathouse Row, Lincoln Financial Field, Wells Fargo Center, Cira Centre and more. They sent a couple of Harper jerseys and T-shirts to the 76ers game that night. They added a Harper home alternate jersey giveaway for kids 14 and under for July 28 against the Braves.

The Phillies ordered more space for more banners to be hung around the city. They bought more space on electronic billboards throughout the area. Buck said they had plans ready to roll, if they signed Harper, but they waited until news broke because they did not want word to spread that the Phillies suddenly purchased a bunch of extra billboard space.

“Everything is building on itself right now,” Buck said.