The City of Evansville and the Icemen can both WIN if the City will allow a Win-Win Relationship
The City of Evansville through its Mr. Everything John Kish has now co-opted the cover of the Courier and Press to take its deal to the people of Evansville. There are a couple of things that are very clear that the City of Evansville needs to not be stuck with the unenviable task of having to do a public mea culpa in the first year of operation if the taxpayers of Evansville are asked to subsidize the operation of the Arena.
Let’s recap what is needed to satisfy the pro-forma that is published on the Arena Website. The City of Evansville projects that there will be 3,500 people at each of the 38 hockey games in the new Arena. The city furthermore projects a ticket price of $12 per ticket. Recently the city has come forward with what they really need which is $7,000 per game for rent.
The math works out very easy. At the official projection of the City of Evansville’s pro-forma they will need $2 per ticket to get their $7,000. The City County Observer respectfully supports exactly that revenue sharing for the agreement between the city and the IceMen. The only other issue to discuss is the sharing of the concessions profit. As the IceMen are the main reason that human beings will be in the Arena for these 38 games it is reasonable and even customary that the team share in the concession profits.
The City County Observer respectfully suggests the following contract between the City of Evansville and the IceMen.
1. The City of Evansville will receive $2 for every ticket sold to an IceMen game. There is no minimum or maximum to the revenue that the City of Evansville shall receive.
2. The City of Evansville and the Evansville IceMen shall share the profits or losses associated with the concessions equally after all expenses have been accounted for.
This is our humble and simple suggestion. This arrangement holds the City of Evansville accountable for the projections of 3,500 attendees per hockey game that they sold to the people of Evansville during the sales pitches of 2007. We believe that the source of this projection is Mr. Tom Chema who was hired by the City of Evansville to make the numbers work and reach the conclusion that an arena was needed. If the projections turn out to be garbage it is the Weinzapfel Administration that paid for the garbage and it should be the City of Evansville that bears the risk for its validity.
Our recommendation creates a true partnership that will allow the Evansville Icemen to mitigate the risks associated with stepping up to the challenge of the new and more expensive Arena while creating a situation for the People’s Arena to overachieve as the team builds a bigger fan base. Please consider this and remember the old adage of KISS (Keep it Simple Stupid).
The recommendation of the City County Observer meets all of the needs for everyone unless of course the City of Evansville and its surrogates have bought another PIG IN A POKE. In that case the city gets their pig.
This make way too much sense to ever be considered seriously by Gish and the ERC.
Yeah sounds way to simple for this to ever happen. It’s either Mr. Kish’s way or no way. Mr. Kish is asking for way more money than the $7,000 that is needed.
I wonder what this is going to do to the Shriners and the circus?
From the C&P, August 4, 2011:
“Last year, the city submitted a request for proposal to bring in a hockey team to the arena and received three bids. The bid submitted by the IceMen was chosen on Nov. 10 because it was aligned with the rent requested by the city of $6,000 to $7,000, and the team was local, Kish said.
In March, shortly after VenuWorks was chosen to manage the arena, Geary began asking for more money, which included revenue from food and beverage sales, Kish said.
The city agreed to provide the IceMen with per-game rent cost on a sliding scale rather than the fixed $6,000 to $7,000. If attendance at a game exceeded the 3,500 predicted fans, the cost of rent would go down.
The city assumed it could offset money lost from the smaller rental fee from sales of those extra fans buying drinks and food. But also under that deal, if attendance dipped below the amount of predicted fans, rent for that game would increase.”
From this excerpt, it seems as though Mr. Geary is in part responsible for the “shifting sands” he described the negotiation process to be. Cooler heads will hopefully prevail because without the IceMen, the people of Evansville will be the loser.
One other note: Any reader who doesn’t think Evansville is a hockey town, or becoming one very quickly, has not been paying attention. More sporting goods stores carry equipment, high schools have organized teams and the IceMen filled Swonder.
To play the devil’s advocate:
Why should they pay the city, immediately, $2 per ticket?
Look at the Hotel incentive package… If we are to be anywhere near comparable, shouldn’t the Icemen pay the $2 per ticket 10 years out, but phase it in slowly starting at $.01 per. Plus shouldn’t they get > $X00K in a forgivable loan package?
Kish will fire a pistol into the foot of one of the performing dogs at the Shrine Circus. That injured dog will limp into the Main Gate Sports Bar, and say to the bartender: ” I’m lookin’ for the man who shot my paw . . . “
I want to thank the City County Observer. You guys get your facts straight. Not like the Courier and Press. All the lies that were in Friday article. If the press would dig a little deeper into the matters. Kish has been a good friend to the Simon Mall Family over the years. The Simon Mall Family wanted to put a USHL team into the new arena back during the bidding process. It wouldn’t suprise me that Kish is getting some money from the Simon Mall Family to ruin the deal with the IceMen and then move the USHL Indiana Ice into the new downtown arena.
Ask questions People of Evansville Kish is doing this to make his money with the Junior Hockey team.
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