Final Attendance Numbers for TinCaps Home Games for 2009
Posted by John B. Kalb - 9/16/09 @ 11:45 pm - Filed Under City Council, Local Politics
Total “Announced” attendance for the 76 home games = 404,318
Net attendance that will count toward the 275,000 before Fort Wayne receives the $1.00 per Performance License Fee = 380,118
380,118 less 275,000 = 105,118 which results in $105, 118 from Hardball Capital toward the Stadium Maintenance Fund. Add to this $150,000 (one-half of the “Naming Rights” fee), and the result is $255,118 toward the contracted $230,000 for the maintenance fund. This leaves Fort Wayne with $25,118 to apply toward the contracted payment by Fort Wayne of all the utilities used at Parkview Field, which has been estimated to be over $50,000 per year. So, in addition to providing Hardball Capital with a prime stadium at no yearly cost to them, Fort Wayne also will have to come up this year with over $25,000 from other taxes to help Hardball make a nice profit on their only investment of just over $5 million.
Tonights 6,269 fans probably is a record for all of Minor League Baseball at a Championship Series Game! And the TinCaps won - only need one more victory to wrap up the first Minor League Championship for a Fort Wayne team -and this will be any one of the, if necessary, three games over the next three nights.
The TinCaps are finishing a “dream year” - A Fort Wayne furnished, absolutely fantastic new stadium, the Fort Wayne fan support that our town has been giving to professional teams for years, and a group of up-and-coming young future Major Leaguers who have played their hearts out - in both halves of the regular season and in the playoffs!
The ownership of the team, Hardball Capital, has to be pleased with how Fort Wayne has treated them. But, to date it has all been “one-way”, with millions of Fort Wayne dollars going to Atlanta, Georgia. Be aware that the Padres organization pays all the salaries for the players, the managers, and the umpires. Plus transportation expenses, equipment (balls, bats, et al) and lots of the other expenses. A modest average paid ticket of $7.00 times the 380,118 paid for the season has resulted in $2,660,826 of gross revenue for just this item (less the $105,118 that will be paid to Fort Wayne due to the Performance License Fee). Again, assuming a modest $10.00 per person “food & beverage” expenditure per paid attendee, would result in a gross income of $3,801,180 (all going to Hardball-none to the city). The revenue due to advertizing signage at Parkview Field, one-half of the $300,000 “naming rights” fee per year paid by Parkview Health, all the charges for the leasing of the suites, scoreboard advertising, broadcast rights and any advertising on radio and television, sales of souvenirs, plus “all other revenues from all Hardball Events”, goes only to Hardball Capital.
Yet, for some hard-to-understand reason, Hardball’s partner, Barry Real Estate, has not been able to complete the portion of the overall Harrison Square development that was a part of the agreement between Fort Wayne and their corporations. But, Fort Wayne still is paying for the stadium and the borrowing costs due to it’s construction - for 2009 this amounts to $3,344,748.
Will Fort Wayne see the same dropoff in attendance that the Wizards saw in their second year (1994) over the first (1993). 266,670 vs. 318,506. This dropoff, if it happens, would result in a 2010 attendance of 325,594 and this would require the city to budget a total of over $100,000 in 2010 to cover this short-fall.
It will be interesting to see where the city administration puts this in their suggested budget for 2010.
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4 Responses to “Final Attendance Numbers for TinCaps Home Games for 2009”
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John:
I sure hope your miscalculating something.
John,
Wasn’t it just back in July you predicted the total paid attendance to be 307,020? That’s a huge difference from the actual of 380,118. A difference of over 73,000, or 24%. What makes you think that you will be even that close on your predictions for future attendance?
I realize you think we should have done nothing and let Fort Wayne die a slow death, but let us enjoy it a little.
It was Kalb handing out apple seeds to the children that really pushed that figure over the edge.
[...] is just slightly larger than the average announced attendance last year for the Fort Wayne TinCaps, a single A baseball team in [...]