Bad owners like Time Warner ruin sports
THURSDAY, 02 JUNE 2011 13:35
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/bad-owners-like-time-warner-ruin-sports
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
The sale of the Atlanta Thrashers to a Canadian group of investors who will take the National Hockey League team to Winnipeg, Manitoba is yet another Time Warner failure. The media giant selected the wrong people in Atlanta to buy the company's National Basketball Association Atlanta Hawks, the NHL Thrashers and the lease agreement with the city of Atlanta for the use of the city built arena.
Time Warner officials, like an awful lot of other officials at media companies, in the late 20th century decided that getting bigger was better and buy out other companies. Rupert Murdoch's News Corp bought the Los Angeles Dodgers and attempted what was then called "vertical integration" and bring a sports franchise into the company. Murdoch's thinking or his advisors thinking was to put Dodgers telecasts into the homes of the Pacific Rim countries like Japan.
Murdoch failed and sold the Dodgers to Frank McCourt's group in 2004.
Time Warner ended up with the Atlanta Braves, the Hawks, Thrashers and control of the leases at Atlanta's new baseball stadium and the city arena. Time Warner then merged operations with America Online or AOL.
AOL Time Warner was a financial disaster.
AOL Time Warner got rid of World Championship Wrestling in March 2001 because it just didn't fit in with the corporate culture of the company. AOL Time Warner ditched the CNN's Sports Tonight program soon after the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. The show would continue on the CNNSI network which started in 1996. But AOL Time Warner ended that channel in 2002. The Hawks, Thrashers and the arena lease was sold off in 2003. Turner South, a regional cable network that was founded in 1999 and carried Braves, Hawks and Thrashers games was sold off in 2006.
In 2007, the Braves franchise was sold. AOL Time Warner also got rid of its share Comedy Central along with a record label.
The company now known as Time Warner has a long history of getting rid of sports properties. After Murdoch attempted to take over Warner Communications (a Time Warner predecessor) in the early 1980s, the company decided that it no longer was interested in owning the New York Cosmos despite the team's success at the Meadowlands. It can be argued that Warner Communications ruined not only the Cosmos with handing out large contracts to big names but the North American Soccer League as well. Eventually the Cosmos and the NASL folded.
AOL was eventually spun off.
Time Warner has stomped all over Ted Turner's legacy in sports. The Hawks, the Thrashers, the Goodwill games, even a sports show on CNN. Time Warner has destroyed CNN as a legitimate source of news and turned Headline News into something that resembles bad daytime/tabloid television. CNN and Headline News are profitable because of the 1984 federal legislation that created a bundled tier that saved cable channels like CNN, Headline News and ESPN.
It is quite clear that Ted Turner was and remains the most important person in Atlanta sports. He bought the Atlanta Braves and turned the medium market franchise into a national brand thanks to WTBS. Turner hired top notch people to run his sports enterprises, Dr. Harvey Schiller, Jack Kelly, Stan Kasten.
At one time, New Jersey-native Kasten ran the Braves, Hawks and Thrashers.
Turner understood the value of having Braves baseball on WTBS and was mocked by baseball purists for turning Braves baseball into TV programming. Braves baseball games started at 5:05 p.m. on Wednesdays in a television block which served as a prelude to a Wednesday night movie. The Braves, a team out of Atlanta, had a national following and showed others in baseball that baseball was TV programming not just a game. Turner also brought the first Soviet player to the NBA as a part of the back and forth of staging the Goodwill Games.
Turner named the hockey team the Thrashers.
Turner ran a successful enterprise which was run into the ground by a company that got far too big, Time Warner and then AOL Time Warner. The company never replaced the sports people who ran Turner Sports, Dr. Schiller, Kelly, Kasten and a host of others. The only smart thing that AOL Time Warner did was to leave John Schuerholz and Bobby Cox in charge of the Braves but the big money that Ted Turner provided to the club was gone. Today, the Atlanta Braves baseball team is run as a mid market franchise and is no longer "America's Team."
To blame Time Warner for the demise of the Atlanta Thrashers may be a bit of a stretch as the company washed its hand of the team eight years ago. Back in 1997, it was a foregone conclusion that Ted Turner was going to get a National Hockey League expansion team in Atlanta and that Dr. Schiller and Kasten were the kind of people the NHL wanted. Turner had the checkbook to buy a franchise for $80 million, there would be a new arena opening in the city and he could put together a regional cable TV network. There was always a possibility that the NHL could get a cable TV network contract with Turner Sports. He could also get corporate support. But the Time Warner takeover of Turner's company and then the AOL-Time Warner merger ended that.
The AOL Time Warner debacle came under President Bill Clinton's watch. Clinton also signed the 1996 TeleCommunications Act into law, an act that virtually destroyed local radio and ended up created two radio giants—Infinity and Clear Channel—and changed the industry.
Vertical integration failed.
Time Warner's Turner Sports still has some major properties. The NBA on TNT, Major League Baseball on TBS, NASCAR on TNT, NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament on TNT, TBS and TruTV along with ncaa.com, nascar.com,nba.com, pga.com, pgatour.com. Atlanta Braves games are on Peachtree TV but Turner does not produce the games.
Time Warner was an original partner of the Fred Wilpon/New York Mets' SNY regional sports network. But Time Warner got rid of Time Warner Cable in 2009. Time Warner and Time Warner Cable are separate companies and Time Warner Cable has a piece of SNY.
Media companies got bigger and were too big to fail but failed. Time Warner and Clear Channel have been bad stewards of media properties. Time Warner is out of the sports ownership business. Bad owners ruin sports and the guys at Time Warner and then AOL Time Warner whether it was Gerald Levin or Steve Case is at the top of the list of bad sports owners.
Evan Weiner, the winner of the United States Sports Academy's 2010 Ronald Reagan Media Award, is an author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business." His book, "The Business and Politics of Sports, Second Edition" is available at bickley.com, Barnes and Noble or amazonkindle.
Showing posts with label goodman viva dodgers oscar vegas las mayor baseball nba league major sports team looking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label goodman viva dodgers oscar vegas las mayor baseball nba league major sports team looking. Show all posts
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Gov. Christie should seek a disgruntled NBA owner instead of lobbying David Stern for Nets replacement
WEDNESDAY, 26 JANUARY 2011 12:59
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/gov-christie-should-seek-a-disgruntled-nba-owner-instead-of-lobbying-david-stern-for-nets-replacement
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
There is an odd dynamic that plays out in sports. Elected officials genuflect before the commissioners of Major League Baseball, the National Football League, the National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League and Major League Soccer along with NASCAR officials begging them for a franchise or in NASCAR's case an annual event. Conversely, a sports commissioner lobbies before elected officials for stadiums/arenas and on the federal level before Washington lawmakers to make sure various antitrust laws and in Major League Baseball's case, a full antitrust exemption, stay in place.
Big time college sports executives also show up in Washington to make sure big time college sports keep tax exemptions in place.
So it should not be surprising that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has begun a lobbying effort, not quite begging yet, in an attempt to get NBA Commissioner David Stern to think about replacing the soon-to-depart Newark-based New Jersey Nets with another team.
New Jersey's chances of landing a team on the surface seem to be non-existent however Christie has an ace in the hole that other prospective cities don't have. A major regional cable sports network that has limited winter programming, SNY, who could pay much more money in TV rights than say Louisville, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Seattle and Vancouver. In David Stern's three-legged stool world for a successful franchise, a large, local cable TV is an absolute must as is local government support (Christie is in favor of a Nets replacement) and corporate support. That last plank in Stern's platform is the major problem in New Jersey and has been a thorn in the side of past and present day Nets (and New Jersey Devils) ownerships.
Christie will have to wait though. The Brooklyn building has been on hold for years although there seems to be momentum to get the arena finally done. The NBA may not be operating in the fall of 2011 because the owners and players need a new collective bargaining agreement and Stern, as lead negotiator, figures to take a very hard line as he and the 30 NBA owners want changes in how players are compensated.
The NBA has some franchises that are on shaky financial footing. The league now owns the New Orleans Hornets, a franchise in desperate fiscal shape. The old Hornets ownership had attendance clauses built into the team lease with the state at the New Orleans Arena. There was a benchmark that needed to be reached by the end of January or the team ownership could pay $10 million and relocate. The league celebrated that the benchmark was hit but that doesn't mean the team will last in New Orleans beyond 2014. Indiana's owner Herb Simon is financially struggling and Charlotte has not been performing well financially since the NBA returned to the city in 2004.
The Maloof brothers are in a financial mess in Sacramento and claim they need a new arena. With California's financial woes and a proposal by Governor Jerry Brown to de-fund local redevelopment agencies on July 1, getting an arena built in Sacramento with public funding may be difficult. The Maloofs have failed in their quest for a new building on a number of occasions. (The Brown proposal could kill NFL stadium development in San Diego and a baseball park in San Jose for the Oakland A's.).
Newark has an NBA ready building for some owner and probably a lucrative cable TV deal. But Newark isn't the only NBA suitor. Louisville, Kentucky is once again seeking a team despite losing out on the Charlotte Hornets and the Vancouver Grizzlies about a decade ago. Vancouver may be back in the NBA wannabe category. The Vancouver saga in the NBA's mid-1990s expansion plans is worth noting in that the NBA decided to take Arthur Griffith's money ($100 million) in what seemed to be a cash grab.
Griffiths built a new arena with his own money and bought the franchise when the Canadian looney was worth 62 or 63 cents compared to the U.S. greenback. The two countries' dollar is around par right now. Griffiths sold the franchise to American businessman Michael Heisley in 2000. Heisley moved his franchise to Memphis in 2001. The Grizzlies franchise remains a cash-challenged NBA organization. A few years ago, Stern said he felt the NBA could not go back to Vancouver.
Stern can be a bullheaded bully. In 2005, the one-time New Jersey resident Stern trashed New Jersey politicians saying "you blew it" when another set of Nets owners could not get an arena built in Newark. Eventually Devils owner Jeffrey Vanderbeek worked out a deal with Newark officials and got an arena built with some of his money thrown into a publicly funded facility.
Christie seems to be willing to play ball with Stern. What Christie should be seeking out is an unhappy owner looking for greener pastures and go after that owner instead of Stern. Although the NBA blocked the planned sale and move of the Minnesota Timberwolves to New Orleans in 1994, a strong headed owner might tell Stern and his fellow owners to go stuff it and move anyway as Donald Sterling did in 1984 when he moved his San Diego Clippers to Los Angeles without league permission.
Moving an existing franchise to Newark may not be a large problem as the NBA, unlike Major League Baseball, is subjected to antitrust laws. It would take moving heaven and earth to put a third Major League Baseball team in the New York City area whether it is in Northern New Jersey or Brooklyn because Major League Baseball is exempt from certain portions of the Sherman Antitrust Act. The Steinbrenner Yankees or the Wilpon Mets or both could say no to the idea and that would be it.
Major League Baseball is struggling to find a solution to the San Francisco Bay Area problem. The San Francisco Giants franchise has the territorial rights to San Jose and Santa Clara County, California even though those areas are much further away from the Giants home base in China Basin than Oakland, the city which houses the A's. Oakland A's owner Lew Wolff wants to move his team to San Jose but cannot because the Giants ownership group has the rights to the territory. Major League Baseball is looking for a solution. The solution will come when Wolff pays millions of dollars for "invading" Giants territory or if he wins an antitrust case against the Giants and Major League Baseball.
Wolff does not seem willing to sue Major League Baseball. Sterling told the NBA to try and stop me. The NBA didn't. But Christie may have to wait before he can really go after a disgruntled owner. There is the threat of the NBA lockout on July 1 and that takes precedent over everything else.
But Christie has thrown his hat in the ring and is running. The campaign has started to replace the New Jersey Nets in Newark as soon as possible.
Evan Weiner, the winner of the United States Sports Academy's 2010 Ronald Reagan Media Award, is an author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business." His book, "The Business and Politics of Sports, Second Edition is available at www.bickley.com, Barnes and Noble or amazonkindle. He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
WEDNESDAY, 26 JANUARY 2011 12:59
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/gov-christie-should-seek-a-disgruntled-nba-owner-instead-of-lobbying-david-stern-for-nets-replacement
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
THE BUSINESS AND POLITICS OF SPORTS
There is an odd dynamic that plays out in sports. Elected officials genuflect before the commissioners of Major League Baseball, the National Football League, the National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League and Major League Soccer along with NASCAR officials begging them for a franchise or in NASCAR's case an annual event. Conversely, a sports commissioner lobbies before elected officials for stadiums/arenas and on the federal level before Washington lawmakers to make sure various antitrust laws and in Major League Baseball's case, a full antitrust exemption, stay in place.
Big time college sports executives also show up in Washington to make sure big time college sports keep tax exemptions in place.
So it should not be surprising that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has begun a lobbying effort, not quite begging yet, in an attempt to get NBA Commissioner David Stern to think about replacing the soon-to-depart Newark-based New Jersey Nets with another team.
New Jersey's chances of landing a team on the surface seem to be non-existent however Christie has an ace in the hole that other prospective cities don't have. A major regional cable sports network that has limited winter programming, SNY, who could pay much more money in TV rights than say Louisville, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Seattle and Vancouver. In David Stern's three-legged stool world for a successful franchise, a large, local cable TV is an absolute must as is local government support (Christie is in favor of a Nets replacement) and corporate support. That last plank in Stern's platform is the major problem in New Jersey and has been a thorn in the side of past and present day Nets (and New Jersey Devils) ownerships.
Christie will have to wait though. The Brooklyn building has been on hold for years although there seems to be momentum to get the arena finally done. The NBA may not be operating in the fall of 2011 because the owners and players need a new collective bargaining agreement and Stern, as lead negotiator, figures to take a very hard line as he and the 30 NBA owners want changes in how players are compensated.
The NBA has some franchises that are on shaky financial footing. The league now owns the New Orleans Hornets, a franchise in desperate fiscal shape. The old Hornets ownership had attendance clauses built into the team lease with the state at the New Orleans Arena. There was a benchmark that needed to be reached by the end of January or the team ownership could pay $10 million and relocate. The league celebrated that the benchmark was hit but that doesn't mean the team will last in New Orleans beyond 2014. Indiana's owner Herb Simon is financially struggling and Charlotte has not been performing well financially since the NBA returned to the city in 2004.
The Maloof brothers are in a financial mess in Sacramento and claim they need a new arena. With California's financial woes and a proposal by Governor Jerry Brown to de-fund local redevelopment agencies on July 1, getting an arena built in Sacramento with public funding may be difficult. The Maloofs have failed in their quest for a new building on a number of occasions. (The Brown proposal could kill NFL stadium development in San Diego and a baseball park in San Jose for the Oakland A's.).
Newark has an NBA ready building for some owner and probably a lucrative cable TV deal. But Newark isn't the only NBA suitor. Louisville, Kentucky is once again seeking a team despite losing out on the Charlotte Hornets and the Vancouver Grizzlies about a decade ago. Vancouver may be back in the NBA wannabe category. The Vancouver saga in the NBA's mid-1990s expansion plans is worth noting in that the NBA decided to take Arthur Griffith's money ($100 million) in what seemed to be a cash grab.
Griffiths built a new arena with his own money and bought the franchise when the Canadian looney was worth 62 or 63 cents compared to the U.S. greenback. The two countries' dollar is around par right now. Griffiths sold the franchise to American businessman Michael Heisley in 2000. Heisley moved his franchise to Memphis in 2001. The Grizzlies franchise remains a cash-challenged NBA organization. A few years ago, Stern said he felt the NBA could not go back to Vancouver.
Stern can be a bullheaded bully. In 2005, the one-time New Jersey resident Stern trashed New Jersey politicians saying "you blew it" when another set of Nets owners could not get an arena built in Newark. Eventually Devils owner Jeffrey Vanderbeek worked out a deal with Newark officials and got an arena built with some of his money thrown into a publicly funded facility.
Christie seems to be willing to play ball with Stern. What Christie should be seeking out is an unhappy owner looking for greener pastures and go after that owner instead of Stern. Although the NBA blocked the planned sale and move of the Minnesota Timberwolves to New Orleans in 1994, a strong headed owner might tell Stern and his fellow owners to go stuff it and move anyway as Donald Sterling did in 1984 when he moved his San Diego Clippers to Los Angeles without league permission.
Moving an existing franchise to Newark may not be a large problem as the NBA, unlike Major League Baseball, is subjected to antitrust laws. It would take moving heaven and earth to put a third Major League Baseball team in the New York City area whether it is in Northern New Jersey or Brooklyn because Major League Baseball is exempt from certain portions of the Sherman Antitrust Act. The Steinbrenner Yankees or the Wilpon Mets or both could say no to the idea and that would be it.
Major League Baseball is struggling to find a solution to the San Francisco Bay Area problem. The San Francisco Giants franchise has the territorial rights to San Jose and Santa Clara County, California even though those areas are much further away from the Giants home base in China Basin than Oakland, the city which houses the A's. Oakland A's owner Lew Wolff wants to move his team to San Jose but cannot because the Giants ownership group has the rights to the territory. Major League Baseball is looking for a solution. The solution will come when Wolff pays millions of dollars for "invading" Giants territory or if he wins an antitrust case against the Giants and Major League Baseball.
Wolff does not seem willing to sue Major League Baseball. Sterling told the NBA to try and stop me. The NBA didn't. But Christie may have to wait before he can really go after a disgruntled owner. There is the threat of the NBA lockout on July 1 and that takes precedent over everything else.
But Christie has thrown his hat in the ring and is running. The campaign has started to replace the New Jersey Nets in Newark as soon as possible.
Evan Weiner, the winner of the United States Sports Academy's 2010 Ronald Reagan Media Award, is an author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business." His book, "The Business and Politics of Sports, Second Edition is available at www.bickley.com, Barnes and Noble or amazonkindle. He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Friday, November 20, 2009
Is Detroit Still a Major League Sports Town?
http://www.mcnsports.com/en/node/7577
Is Detroit Still a Major League Sports Town?
By Evan Weiner
November 20, 2009
10:00 PM EST
Has Detroit ceased being a middle market franchise? There are three not so subtle clues that Detroit has slid into a small market city that has cropped up in just the last week. Mike Ilitch’s Detroit Tigers baseball franchise has a lot of money tied up in players and the rumors are that Ilitch is about ready to shave millions from his payroll and is looking to trade Curtis Granderson, a 28-year-old All-Star outfield, who has three years remaining on a five-year agreement with Ilitch that pays him more than six million dollars annually.
Granderson remains a member of the Detroit Tigers, but the 2009-10 hot stove league is far from over.
Granderson plays in a market that is going through more than just a bad recession. Detroit and the surrounding area lost been devastated by the retrenchment of the auto industry with both General Motors and Chrysler hanging on because of government bailouts from the United States and Canada. The only good news Ilitch has seen is that the American dollar has weakened while the Canadian dollar has flirted with par with the US greenback, which is a good development in the Detroit market as a good chunk of the metropolitan area is shared with Windsor and nearby Ontario cities. The bad part is that the automobile industry was a major part of the Windsor/Ontario economy as well.
Whether Granderson or Edwin Jackson is entirely up to Tigers management. But there is a question of just how much money that corporate Detroit can sink into two of Ilitch’s teams, the Tigers and the NHL Red Wings, William Ford’s Detroit Lions and the Auburn Hills-based Detroit Pistons.
The answer seems to be, not as much as the old days. In some aspects, it seems as if the Detroit Lions franchise has gone back 75 years. This Sunday’s home game against the Cleveland Browns will be blacked out in the Detroit metro region, an area that includes Toledo, Ohio, Lansing, Michigan and the Saginaw-Flint, Michigan market. Granted both the Lions and Browns are terrible football teams, both have won just one game and lost eight, but there would seem to be enough Cleveland Browns backers to make the relatively short trip up to Detroit.
This is the fourth time in six games that a Lions home contest has been blacked out in 2009. Detroit did sell out earlier this year against Pittsburgh and a lot of Steelers fans made the trip to Detroit but Ford’s team has had a lot of trouble selling 40,000 or more tickets per game. In 2008, as Detroit’s football team continued to lose and the auto companies were on the verge of failing, five of the Lions last six home games were not shown in the Detroit and secondary Detroit markets.
Of course, it cannot be said that a winning team in Detroit would do that much better considering the deteriorating economic conditions in Detroit and the surrounding area.
Detroit will be facing an old Thanksgiving Day rival this year on turkey day, the Green Bay Packers. More than likely, Detroit will fill up the stadium with help from Packers backers.
The Detroit Lions franchise was born in the Great Depression that started with the stock market crash in 1929 after the Portsmouth (Ohio) Spartans franchise was on the financial ropes in 1933. The owner of Detroit’s WJR radio, Gene Richards bought the Spartans and move the team to Detroit where the newly minted Lions franchise was looking to get people into Briggs Stadium.
Richards scheduled a Thanksgiving Day game in 1934 with the hopes that Thanksgiving Day parade goers in Detroit would wander over to the stadium and watch. There was significance to that game that is mostly lost today. The Chicago Bears-Detroit Lions contest was the first NFL game ever to be heard coast-to-coast and border-to-border in the United States. Detroit has hosted 69 Thanksgiving Day contests from 1934-38 and 1945-today. In 1939, United States President Franklin Roosevelt changed Thanksgiving and moved the holiday up a week to November 23 in an effort to spark Christmas sales and help the still struggling economy.
Political parties never change stripes and a silly battle ensued between Democrats and Republicans (this in the days prior to ersatz arguments on talk radio and cable TV news) and by 1940 there were states that “celebrated” the Democrats’ Thanksgiving a week earlier than the Republicans Thanksgiving. Pittsburgh and Philadelphia played each other in 1939 and 1940.
They were in the same state.
The municipally funded Pontiac Silverdome opened in 1975 with the Lions football team as the main tenant. The new facility cost $55.7 million. William Clay Ford’s Lions played football there from 1975-2001. The dome also played host to Detroit Pistons games from 1978-88. After Ford moved his Lions back to downtown Detroit, the then 27-year old football facility has virtually useless. The Jehovah’s Witnesses left the facility in 2004 after using it for years for an annual convention.
Between 2003 and 2006, the Pontiac Silverdome parking lot was the home for a Drive-In movie theater.
Two leagues that never got off the ground took a look at the facility. The World Hockey Association and the United States Football League. The reincarnation of the WHA was an ill-fated idea but there were plans to put a rink in the building in 2003 and the reincarnated USFL was looking to purchase the building and playing games there in 2010 along with hosting concerts,
The new USFL never got financial backing. On November 16, a Toronto-based company bought the old stadium for $583,000 at auction with the hope of placing a Major League Soccer team in the building.
The “new” USFL appears to be in the hands of another promoter with the hope of starting up in 2011 but that league will not be buying the old dome.
At least the building is still standing which is more than can be said for old stadiums in Seattle and Pittsburgh which were blown up after new facilities for major league sports teams were build with taxpayers money. Seattle (King County) and Pittsburgh (Allegheny County) taxpayers are still paying off the debt on the long departed Seattle Kingdome and Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Stadium.
Some may suggest the cheap purchase price for the Silverdome is the result of a crashing Detroit real estate market and the weak economy. While that is a major factor, the real reason the price went so cheap is that once a stadium gets to a certain age, it becomes useless and has virtually no value because it lacks what sports owners want today, luxury boxes, club seats, wide alleyways for concessions, in-facility restaurants and shops.
What was state-of-the-art in 1975 is a dump in today’s sports marketplace.
Detroit was once a major market thanks to the auto companies a half century ago. Today, the city and the surrounding area are hurting economically and the population is shrinking. That has taken a toll on Detroit sports properties and raises the question, can Detroit remain a major sports town that can support big time pro and college sports or will Detroit become a city like Louisville, Kentucky, which was once major league town in a different century?
eweiner@mcn.tv
Is Detroit Still a Major League Sports Town?
By Evan Weiner
November 20, 2009
10:00 PM EST
Has Detroit ceased being a middle market franchise? There are three not so subtle clues that Detroit has slid into a small market city that has cropped up in just the last week. Mike Ilitch’s Detroit Tigers baseball franchise has a lot of money tied up in players and the rumors are that Ilitch is about ready to shave millions from his payroll and is looking to trade Curtis Granderson, a 28-year-old All-Star outfield, who has three years remaining on a five-year agreement with Ilitch that pays him more than six million dollars annually.
Granderson remains a member of the Detroit Tigers, but the 2009-10 hot stove league is far from over.
Granderson plays in a market that is going through more than just a bad recession. Detroit and the surrounding area lost been devastated by the retrenchment of the auto industry with both General Motors and Chrysler hanging on because of government bailouts from the United States and Canada. The only good news Ilitch has seen is that the American dollar has weakened while the Canadian dollar has flirted with par with the US greenback, which is a good development in the Detroit market as a good chunk of the metropolitan area is shared with Windsor and nearby Ontario cities. The bad part is that the automobile industry was a major part of the Windsor/Ontario economy as well.
Whether Granderson or Edwin Jackson is entirely up to Tigers management. But there is a question of just how much money that corporate Detroit can sink into two of Ilitch’s teams, the Tigers and the NHL Red Wings, William Ford’s Detroit Lions and the Auburn Hills-based Detroit Pistons.
The answer seems to be, not as much as the old days. In some aspects, it seems as if the Detroit Lions franchise has gone back 75 years. This Sunday’s home game against the Cleveland Browns will be blacked out in the Detroit metro region, an area that includes Toledo, Ohio, Lansing, Michigan and the Saginaw-Flint, Michigan market. Granted both the Lions and Browns are terrible football teams, both have won just one game and lost eight, but there would seem to be enough Cleveland Browns backers to make the relatively short trip up to Detroit.
This is the fourth time in six games that a Lions home contest has been blacked out in 2009. Detroit did sell out earlier this year against Pittsburgh and a lot of Steelers fans made the trip to Detroit but Ford’s team has had a lot of trouble selling 40,000 or more tickets per game. In 2008, as Detroit’s football team continued to lose and the auto companies were on the verge of failing, five of the Lions last six home games were not shown in the Detroit and secondary Detroit markets.
Of course, it cannot be said that a winning team in Detroit would do that much better considering the deteriorating economic conditions in Detroit and the surrounding area.
Detroit will be facing an old Thanksgiving Day rival this year on turkey day, the Green Bay Packers. More than likely, Detroit will fill up the stadium with help from Packers backers.
The Detroit Lions franchise was born in the Great Depression that started with the stock market crash in 1929 after the Portsmouth (Ohio) Spartans franchise was on the financial ropes in 1933. The owner of Detroit’s WJR radio, Gene Richards bought the Spartans and move the team to Detroit where the newly minted Lions franchise was looking to get people into Briggs Stadium.
Richards scheduled a Thanksgiving Day game in 1934 with the hopes that Thanksgiving Day parade goers in Detroit would wander over to the stadium and watch. There was significance to that game that is mostly lost today. The Chicago Bears-Detroit Lions contest was the first NFL game ever to be heard coast-to-coast and border-to-border in the United States. Detroit has hosted 69 Thanksgiving Day contests from 1934-38 and 1945-today. In 1939, United States President Franklin Roosevelt changed Thanksgiving and moved the holiday up a week to November 23 in an effort to spark Christmas sales and help the still struggling economy.
Political parties never change stripes and a silly battle ensued between Democrats and Republicans (this in the days prior to ersatz arguments on talk radio and cable TV news) and by 1940 there were states that “celebrated” the Democrats’ Thanksgiving a week earlier than the Republicans Thanksgiving. Pittsburgh and Philadelphia played each other in 1939 and 1940.
They were in the same state.
The municipally funded Pontiac Silverdome opened in 1975 with the Lions football team as the main tenant. The new facility cost $55.7 million. William Clay Ford’s Lions played football there from 1975-2001. The dome also played host to Detroit Pistons games from 1978-88. After Ford moved his Lions back to downtown Detroit, the then 27-year old football facility has virtually useless. The Jehovah’s Witnesses left the facility in 2004 after using it for years for an annual convention.
Between 2003 and 2006, the Pontiac Silverdome parking lot was the home for a Drive-In movie theater.
Two leagues that never got off the ground took a look at the facility. The World Hockey Association and the United States Football League. The reincarnation of the WHA was an ill-fated idea but there were plans to put a rink in the building in 2003 and the reincarnated USFL was looking to purchase the building and playing games there in 2010 along with hosting concerts,
The new USFL never got financial backing. On November 16, a Toronto-based company bought the old stadium for $583,000 at auction with the hope of placing a Major League Soccer team in the building.
The “new” USFL appears to be in the hands of another promoter with the hope of starting up in 2011 but that league will not be buying the old dome.
At least the building is still standing which is more than can be said for old stadiums in Seattle and Pittsburgh which were blown up after new facilities for major league sports teams were build with taxpayers money. Seattle (King County) and Pittsburgh (Allegheny County) taxpayers are still paying off the debt on the long departed Seattle Kingdome and Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Stadium.
Some may suggest the cheap purchase price for the Silverdome is the result of a crashing Detroit real estate market and the weak economy. While that is a major factor, the real reason the price went so cheap is that once a stadium gets to a certain age, it becomes useless and has virtually no value because it lacks what sports owners want today, luxury boxes, club seats, wide alleyways for concessions, in-facility restaurants and shops.
What was state-of-the-art in 1975 is a dump in today’s sports marketplace.
Detroit was once a major market thanks to the auto companies a half century ago. Today, the city and the surrounding area are hurting economically and the population is shrinking. That has taken a toll on Detroit sports properties and raises the question, can Detroit remain a major sports town that can support big time pro and college sports or will Detroit become a city like Louisville, Kentucky, which was once major league town in a different century?
eweiner@mcn.tv
Friday, October 30, 2009
Goodman to the NBA: Viva Las Vegas!
http://www.mcnsports.com/en/node/7564
Goodman to the NBA: Viva Las Vegas!
By Evan Weiner
October 30, 2009
1:30 PM EDT
(New York, N. Y.) – Oscar Goodman is talking about bringing a major league professional sports franchise to Las Vegas again; this time he wants the National Basketball Association to set up shop in the city. Las Vegas residents should not count on Mayor Oscar Goodman to bring them a major league team. He has missed every three pointer he has thrown up.
Goodman’s sports record is about the same as those looking to strike it rich in the city’s various casinos. The mayor went after a number of Major League Baseball teams beginning in 1999 and tried to convince baseball operators, including the Los Angeles Dodgers ownership, that they could let it roll in Las Vegas and get major rewards. He failed.
Goodman and his team were correct in their assessment that Florida-based Spring Training Major League Baseball clubs like the Dodgers, the Chicago White Sox and others were looking to move to more lucrative areas for baseball’s pre-season but Arizona ended up with the teams because the Arizona Sports and Tourism Authority (which was fired up on April 24, 2000) gave $32 million to Sunrise (they ended up with Kansas City and Texas – two Florida teams), $4.3 million to keep the Oakland A’s in Phoenix, $12 million to keep the Anaheim (now Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim) in Tempe, $20 million to keep the San Francisco Giants in Scottsdale, an estimated $55 million to Goodyear (Cleveland and Cincinnati left Florida for the new Goodyear ballpark), and estimated $60 million to Glendale for a stadium that lured two more Florida teams, the Dodgers and White Sox.
Goodman has gotten a handful of exhibition games in Las Vegas but a game here or there is a weak consolation prize.
In 2005, Goodman predicted that Las Vegas would have a Major League Baseball team by 2011. During 2003 and 2004 Las Vegas officials met with Major League Baseball about moving the then-MLB owned Montreal Expos to the desert gambling oasis. MLB cut a deal with Washington, DC politicians and move the team there in 2005. Goodman’s staff also tried to lure Florida Marlins owners Jeffrey Loria to the desert and failed.
Loria ended up with financing for a new Marlins ballpark at the site of the old Orange Bowl in Miami last spring some four years after Goodman started to chase him. Las Vegas was never a major contender for Loria’s team nor was San Antonio, which also put out a feeler.
There will not be a Major League Baseball team in Las Vegas in 2011 as Goodman’s plan for a 40,000 stadium never materialized. When Goodman made his prediction, ownerships in Minnesota, Florida and Oakland were looking for new venues. Only Lewis Wolff in Oakland is looking for a new stadium at the moment although the Tampa Rays ownership wants a new stadium in the Tampa Bay area. The Rays have a long lease in St. Petersburg while Wolff continues to seek a San Francisco Bay Area locale.
It is unlikely that Las Vegas will have a Major League Baseball in the near or long term future.
Goodman is now seeking an NBA team. The truth is that Las Vegas had a National Hockey League team and lost it because Phil Anschutz's AEG and Harrah’s were unable to get financing to build an arena near the Strip. The NHL apparently had an owner also in Jerry Bruckenheimer, the Hollywood producer, who was ready to get behind a Las Vegas team in 2007.
When the economy tanked, so did the chances of a getting NHL team in Las Vegas even though two arenas were on the drawing board. Sports people talk about how Las Vegas might be a potentially great market and Goodman will roll out a whole bunch of talking points about how Las Vegas would be a great home for a major league team, but there is one major obstacle to putting a team in the city.
It is not gambling either; leagues can work around legalized sports betting.
It is the economy, more specifically foreclosures. In the third quarter of 2009, one in every 23 homes in the state was foreclosed. That does not help Goodman’s cause. Nevada is among the worst states in the nation in terms of the numbers of foreclosures.
Goodman has a deal with the Baltimore-based Cordish Companies to do a study on an 18-acre parcel of land near City Hall where an arena along with a new City Hall could be built. Cordish is taking a look after REI Neon could not build an arena. REI Neon talked to Las Vegas officials between August 2007 and October 2008. The plug was pulled because of the worsening economic conditions.
Cordish is an intriguing partner for Goodman in that Cordish was supposed to develop the area around St. Louis’ new baseball park in a stadium village concept. The stadium was built but little else has been done at the site.
The economy tanked.
Cordish isn’t promising to build an arena, the company is kicking the tires so to speak to see if it is wise to put a venue up along with other buildings.
The NBA has had a presence in Las Vegas for a while. The league held the 2007 All-Star Game and other festivities in the city which was supposed to be a showcase. It turned out to be a public relations nightmare because of the Adam (Pacman) Jones incident and other problems. The NBA also has an annual summer league in the city and in 1983-84, the Utah Jazz played 15 games there. The National Hockey League’s 2009 award presentation went off without a hitch.
The NHL has played pre-season games in Las Vegas.
In 1996, the Oakland A’s first home stand was played in Las Vegas because the Oakland Coliseum remodeling was not complete.
Las Vegas is a destination site and that becomes problematic when the sports model for success is applied to the city.
Government, Cable TV and Corporate support.
Goodman is giving a potential sports owner support in offering a venue, in this case a proposed arena although there are very few specifics about the facility including what it might cost if Cordish goes ahead with construction. How would the facility be funded, will the city will give land away to “boost” the economy or would Cordish pay property taxes, or use other mechanisms like payment in lieu of taxes or tax increment financing? Another question. Will Cordish or a potential sports owner pay more than eight cents on a dollar (the federal bottom) or just eight cents on every dollar earned inside the facility to go back to the municipality? These are multi-million dollar questions.
Goodman and arena proponents may scream and yell and claim that an arena is an economic engine but time and time again that has been proven wrong as once the construction stops on the building, the majority of the people working at the arena will be per diem, minimum wage employees.
Leg two on the three-legged sports financing stool is cable TV. Las Vegas does not have a big population, sure it was growing but cable TV money from a regional sports network may not be very large. Right now, there is no regional sports network in Las Vegas and someone would have to build it from scratch or a Las Vegas team might have to deal with a regional that already is in the city from another market.
Thirdly, a team needs large corporate support. In Las Vegas, the casinos control entertainment. Do casinos operators want competition from a sports team that might keep customers out of the casinos for four hours? The Maloof Brothers own the NBA’s Sacramento Kings (they need a new arena and Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, a former NBA player with Cleveland and Phoenix is seeking ideas to build a new place in his city) and one of the Maloofs, George, runs the Palms Casino Resort so that might be a major factor in whether the casinos would support a Vegas NBA (or NHL team, there have been rumors for years that the Maloofs might be interested in the NHL in Las Vegas). Without casino support, there is no chance a team can be successful in Las Vegas. Las Vegas is a service industry town and that group could make up a fan base but owners need a customer base, people willing to spent money -- fans look for bargains, customers don’t. That is a huge divide when it comes to actually supporting a franchise.
The NBA’s Women’s National Basketball Association has a franchise in the arena at the Mohegan Sun casino in Connecticut. The casino owns the team and people leaving the arena can go right into the casino. In essence, Connecticut Sun patrons can be a captive audience that is released into a casino right after a game. The NBA, based on allowing the Mohegan Sun owners to run a franchise in a casino, should have no problems with a potential Las Vegas franchise.
Las Vegas needs all three requisites to align.
Goodman has failed in getting Major League Baseball to set up a “Gambling” League (MLB has the Grapefruit League in Florida and the Cactus League in Arizona) Spring Training loop and did not land the Expos or Marlins. The NHL doesn’t have a rink in the city although the league still likes Las Vegas and the NBA has business in the city. But neither the NBA nor the NHL has a place to play.
Goodman is at it again. He won’t get a National Football League because of the gambling although NFL teams are partnering with state sponsored gambling in various cities. Goodman does have a United Football League team in the city that is getting lukewarm support. NASCAR has a Las Vegas stop, boxing is still a big deal in Nevada, there are minor league baseball and hockey teams in the city and golf and tennis tournaments are played there throughout the year. But Goodman wants more. He needs to build a taxpayers supported facility as a lure or give land away and hope for an arena-village for an NBA (or NHL) team to come to Vegas and that has not happened as of yet.
eweiner@mcn.tv
Goodman to the NBA: Viva Las Vegas!
By Evan Weiner
October 30, 2009
1:30 PM EDT
(New York, N. Y.) – Oscar Goodman is talking about bringing a major league professional sports franchise to Las Vegas again; this time he wants the National Basketball Association to set up shop in the city. Las Vegas residents should not count on Mayor Oscar Goodman to bring them a major league team. He has missed every three pointer he has thrown up.
Goodman’s sports record is about the same as those looking to strike it rich in the city’s various casinos. The mayor went after a number of Major League Baseball teams beginning in 1999 and tried to convince baseball operators, including the Los Angeles Dodgers ownership, that they could let it roll in Las Vegas and get major rewards. He failed.
Goodman and his team were correct in their assessment that Florida-based Spring Training Major League Baseball clubs like the Dodgers, the Chicago White Sox and others were looking to move to more lucrative areas for baseball’s pre-season but Arizona ended up with the teams because the Arizona Sports and Tourism Authority (which was fired up on April 24, 2000) gave $32 million to Sunrise (they ended up with Kansas City and Texas – two Florida teams), $4.3 million to keep the Oakland A’s in Phoenix, $12 million to keep the Anaheim (now Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim) in Tempe, $20 million to keep the San Francisco Giants in Scottsdale, an estimated $55 million to Goodyear (Cleveland and Cincinnati left Florida for the new Goodyear ballpark), and estimated $60 million to Glendale for a stadium that lured two more Florida teams, the Dodgers and White Sox.
Goodman has gotten a handful of exhibition games in Las Vegas but a game here or there is a weak consolation prize.
In 2005, Goodman predicted that Las Vegas would have a Major League Baseball team by 2011. During 2003 and 2004 Las Vegas officials met with Major League Baseball about moving the then-MLB owned Montreal Expos to the desert gambling oasis. MLB cut a deal with Washington, DC politicians and move the team there in 2005. Goodman’s staff also tried to lure Florida Marlins owners Jeffrey Loria to the desert and failed.
Loria ended up with financing for a new Marlins ballpark at the site of the old Orange Bowl in Miami last spring some four years after Goodman started to chase him. Las Vegas was never a major contender for Loria’s team nor was San Antonio, which also put out a feeler.
There will not be a Major League Baseball team in Las Vegas in 2011 as Goodman’s plan for a 40,000 stadium never materialized. When Goodman made his prediction, ownerships in Minnesota, Florida and Oakland were looking for new venues. Only Lewis Wolff in Oakland is looking for a new stadium at the moment although the Tampa Rays ownership wants a new stadium in the Tampa Bay area. The Rays have a long lease in St. Petersburg while Wolff continues to seek a San Francisco Bay Area locale.
It is unlikely that Las Vegas will have a Major League Baseball in the near or long term future.
Goodman is now seeking an NBA team. The truth is that Las Vegas had a National Hockey League team and lost it because Phil Anschutz's AEG and Harrah’s were unable to get financing to build an arena near the Strip. The NHL apparently had an owner also in Jerry Bruckenheimer, the Hollywood producer, who was ready to get behind a Las Vegas team in 2007.
When the economy tanked, so did the chances of a getting NHL team in Las Vegas even though two arenas were on the drawing board. Sports people talk about how Las Vegas might be a potentially great market and Goodman will roll out a whole bunch of talking points about how Las Vegas would be a great home for a major league team, but there is one major obstacle to putting a team in the city.
It is not gambling either; leagues can work around legalized sports betting.
It is the economy, more specifically foreclosures. In the third quarter of 2009, one in every 23 homes in the state was foreclosed. That does not help Goodman’s cause. Nevada is among the worst states in the nation in terms of the numbers of foreclosures.
Goodman has a deal with the Baltimore-based Cordish Companies to do a study on an 18-acre parcel of land near City Hall where an arena along with a new City Hall could be built. Cordish is taking a look after REI Neon could not build an arena. REI Neon talked to Las Vegas officials between August 2007 and October 2008. The plug was pulled because of the worsening economic conditions.
Cordish is an intriguing partner for Goodman in that Cordish was supposed to develop the area around St. Louis’ new baseball park in a stadium village concept. The stadium was built but little else has been done at the site.
The economy tanked.
Cordish isn’t promising to build an arena, the company is kicking the tires so to speak to see if it is wise to put a venue up along with other buildings.
The NBA has had a presence in Las Vegas for a while. The league held the 2007 All-Star Game and other festivities in the city which was supposed to be a showcase. It turned out to be a public relations nightmare because of the Adam (Pacman) Jones incident and other problems. The NBA also has an annual summer league in the city and in 1983-84, the Utah Jazz played 15 games there. The National Hockey League’s 2009 award presentation went off without a hitch.
The NHL has played pre-season games in Las Vegas.
In 1996, the Oakland A’s first home stand was played in Las Vegas because the Oakland Coliseum remodeling was not complete.
Las Vegas is a destination site and that becomes problematic when the sports model for success is applied to the city.
Government, Cable TV and Corporate support.
Goodman is giving a potential sports owner support in offering a venue, in this case a proposed arena although there are very few specifics about the facility including what it might cost if Cordish goes ahead with construction. How would the facility be funded, will the city will give land away to “boost” the economy or would Cordish pay property taxes, or use other mechanisms like payment in lieu of taxes or tax increment financing? Another question. Will Cordish or a potential sports owner pay more than eight cents on a dollar (the federal bottom) or just eight cents on every dollar earned inside the facility to go back to the municipality? These are multi-million dollar questions.
Goodman and arena proponents may scream and yell and claim that an arena is an economic engine but time and time again that has been proven wrong as once the construction stops on the building, the majority of the people working at the arena will be per diem, minimum wage employees.
Leg two on the three-legged sports financing stool is cable TV. Las Vegas does not have a big population, sure it was growing but cable TV money from a regional sports network may not be very large. Right now, there is no regional sports network in Las Vegas and someone would have to build it from scratch or a Las Vegas team might have to deal with a regional that already is in the city from another market.
Thirdly, a team needs large corporate support. In Las Vegas, the casinos control entertainment. Do casinos operators want competition from a sports team that might keep customers out of the casinos for four hours? The Maloof Brothers own the NBA’s Sacramento Kings (they need a new arena and Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, a former NBA player with Cleveland and Phoenix is seeking ideas to build a new place in his city) and one of the Maloofs, George, runs the Palms Casino Resort so that might be a major factor in whether the casinos would support a Vegas NBA (or NHL team, there have been rumors for years that the Maloofs might be interested in the NHL in Las Vegas). Without casino support, there is no chance a team can be successful in Las Vegas. Las Vegas is a service industry town and that group could make up a fan base but owners need a customer base, people willing to spent money -- fans look for bargains, customers don’t. That is a huge divide when it comes to actually supporting a franchise.
The NBA’s Women’s National Basketball Association has a franchise in the arena at the Mohegan Sun casino in Connecticut. The casino owns the team and people leaving the arena can go right into the casino. In essence, Connecticut Sun patrons can be a captive audience that is released into a casino right after a game. The NBA, based on allowing the Mohegan Sun owners to run a franchise in a casino, should have no problems with a potential Las Vegas franchise.
Las Vegas needs all three requisites to align.
Goodman has failed in getting Major League Baseball to set up a “Gambling” League (MLB has the Grapefruit League in Florida and the Cactus League in Arizona) Spring Training loop and did not land the Expos or Marlins. The NHL doesn’t have a rink in the city although the league still likes Las Vegas and the NBA has business in the city. But neither the NBA nor the NHL has a place to play.
Goodman is at it again. He won’t get a National Football League because of the gambling although NFL teams are partnering with state sponsored gambling in various cities. Goodman does have a United Football League team in the city that is getting lukewarm support. NASCAR has a Las Vegas stop, boxing is still a big deal in Nevada, there are minor league baseball and hockey teams in the city and golf and tennis tournaments are played there throughout the year. But Goodman wants more. He needs to build a taxpayers supported facility as a lure or give land away and hope for an arena-village for an NBA (or NHL) team to come to Vegas and that has not happened as of yet.
eweiner@mcn.tv
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