How are we doing on $235,000 funding of Stadium Maint.Fund
Posted by John B. Kalb - 6/15/09 @ 1:39 pm - Filed Under City Council, Local Politics
With 35 home games out of the scheduled 70 for the Tin Caps at Parkview Field for the 2009 season, an update of the attendance is in order to see if addition taxpayer money may be required to meet the city responsibility to the annual addition to the Stadium Maintenance Fund.
Note that attendee’s not to be included in the total are all free or reduced fee ticketed youths. Announced free tickets to date include 9500 school kids on the Wednesday games before the end of the school year. There are others, but the quantity has not been given - this includes tickets to media, visiting team officials, discounted tickets for fund-raisers, employees, game day performance personnel, and any ticket used by Major League or Minor League Baseball personnel.
April - 8 games total attendance = 35,846 Of this 4500 were free student attendees on 4/22/09.
So net April attendance was 31,346 for a 3,918 per game average.
May - 17 games total attendance = 78,570 Of this total 5000 were free student attendees on 5/6/09
So net May attendance was 73,570 for a 4,327 per game average.
And then, YTD total = 114,416 less the 9500 free ones = 104,916 for 25 games - for a 4,197 average
June up to 6/13/09 10 games total attendance = 48,579 - average for first 10 games in May = 4858/gm
And for the first 35 games in 2009 (one half of the 70 game home season) - total attendance = 162,995 less the 9,500 is a net of 153,495 or an average of 4386 per game
Assuming these averages will hold for the last 35 games, this will result in a total of 70 times 4,386 = 307,020 attendees for the season. This will result in Hardball paying, at $1.00 per attendee over 275,000, of $32,020 to the city. Per the Stadium License Agreement, all of this goes into the Stadium Maintenance Fund. With the one half of the “naming rights” payment of $300,000($150,000) for 2009 this fund will have a total of $182,020 in it. Per the Stadium License Agreement, the city will annually pay $325,000 into this fund. (In addition, the city has agreed to pay for all utilities for the stadium).
This means that the Tin Caps will have to have OVER 80,000 total fans attend the remaining 35 games for the $1.00 per attendee overage to just pay the $325,000 into the maintenance fund - or they will have to average 1,371 MORE per game in the second half than they did for the first!
THAT MEANS AN AVERAGE OF 6,757 for the last 35 games - just to break even! Only 4 games of the first 35 exceeded that average and I have not yet found out if the Girl Scouts last Friday night received discounted tickets so that total may be one less, since those tickets may not count.
And even more will be required to pay fror the natural gas, electricity, water and sewage costs at one attendee per dollar available.
Oh, and by the way, the Stadium License Agreement specifies that the only concession income that the city gets is 10 % of the profit at CITY SPONSORED EVENTS!
It’s a great ballpark, but the sales-job our city council got before approval, is very, very suspect!! As has been expressed by a few of our present council, most - if not all - of the net income from downtown baseball is going to Atlanta, Georgia!!!
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5 Responses to “How are we doing on $235,000 funding of Stadium Maint.Fund”
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John,
I just ran the same analysis and got the same results as yours. I am uncertain of how attendance is being reported; is it turnstile?-if so it would include lots of free persons but exclude tickets bought but not used. I guess we will just have to trust them to credit the correct amount to the City’s maintenance fund obligation( no problem-Ft. Wayne has given them the best deal any business could ask for and surely Hardball will treat us “fairly”) !!
John,
If you’ll recall, the Wizards did not use the turnstile numbers, they used “tickets distributed”. Now that it will cost them, you can bet they’ll revert to how many passed through the turnstile.
Both calculations are similar to those done during the debate on Harrison Square. My comment prior to passage was on what basis did supporters base an increase in attendance over the Coliseum stadium? What would be the catalyst to increase attendance?
Would it be lower ticket price, no?
Would it be better location, no?
Would it be more money to spend, no?
Would a nicer venue attract more attendance?
In the end to shift the normal attendance by 5% would take a lot. Too shift it by 20% is wishful thinking.
I will be called a detractor, when in fact I am a realist. We had a stadium paid for that had the capacity for the attendance based on reality. Now City Council built a new stadium, we spend a million to tear down the old one and city taxpayers are now on the hook for huge liabilities. Does City Council know when to take a loss, no? The reason is it is not their money and they are inexperienced investors.
I guess that settles it. Fort Wayne Politics is against the stadium, shut it all down.
Wow, is that all it takes? I hope FWP starts attacking the bogus stimulus spending now.