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Slight observation: How do you explain more people attending this last Titan's game than FSU's Baseball game with #2 Ranked North Carolina on the same night?

To me, it doesn't matter if this team is AFL, af2, AIFA, or street. Tallahassee has a team suited up wearing our name playing a team from another City. That's more than enough reason to earn my support... but again, I'm a die-hard Tallahasseean, and people like me are hard to find around here.... I suppose.

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Slight nitpick bahmo but it does not change your point: Tally metro is 350K not 250K.

P'cola metro (military included) is around 450K, however w/in an hour's drive of downtown P'cola are a little over 1 million people b/c of Mobile and Fort Walton/Destin. Within an hour's drive of Tally are only approx. 600k people. That is where the difference is.

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I feel the Titan's suffered from poor news coverage early in the season, but since their financial troubles surfaced, the news media have picked up on covering the team and all of their problems, rather than focus on their success. The strategy may have been to give away tickets seeing they weren't going to sell-out, and hope those they gave tickets to would atleast purchase Hats, shirts, and such.

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I posted this on the Titans thread too...

From the Democrat this morning: "The Titans had hoped to pay off some bills with revenue from Friday's game, but the team received $4,234 - roughly $25,000 less than what was expected - after expenses were paid to the Civic Center."

Who is the financial director for the Titans and were they previously employed at Enron? I would like to know how they received roughly $20,000.00 less than they anticipated in revenue from the Lakeland game. Something is rotten at the DLTCC!

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Yeah depending on what source you use, Census Bureau or UF's BEBR, Leon County is 250K to 275K. However when you speak of Tally Metro as you did, that includes Leon, Gadsden, Wakulla and Jefferson counties and brings our total to the 330K to 350K range.

Monti, that's some crazy stuff. Don't the Titans and DLTCC have an agreement about these details in writing? Is there any communication between the two? I find it odd that they were expecting $20K MORE? Whoever the Titan's accountant/bookkeeper is, maybe they shouldn't me?

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I voted 'other'

I don't think it is anybody's fault.

I have said repeatedly, Tally simply can't support pro (maybe even semi pro) sports leagues. Tally does not have significant (KEY word) corporations to speak of.....or even non govt. economic base. This is critical when you are trying to support these types of leagues. Same thing with the PAC FYI.

Throw in a smaller populations (350K) and FSU (I would never go to a non FSU sporting event in Tally....I just love FSU that much...I would rather go to women's softball at FSU than an arena football game. Well if the Wash. Redskins moved here I would, but I mean realistic).

Frankly, I could care less. I can live anywhere with my career and if small time pro sports mean squat to me, I would live somewhere else.

I would rather Tally support FSU more than small time sports league....but that is me.

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I don't understand?

In what way could the people of Tallahassee support FSU more?! Seems FSU has no problem with community support. Especially among Tallahassee's white population. I understand the blacks in this community are torn somewhat between our two universities, and some even to UF (to spite FSU in my opinion, but I hear they have the same problem in Gainesville against UF).

But for sports fans, who really like football, or hockey, there are bodies in this community that would get into events at the Civic Center. But let's move beyond sports, what about us getting concerts? Where are those events? I spoke to the woman in Pensacola the other day who told me, although our Arena is larger than their's they're able to get more events because the atmosphere is welcoming, and vibrant. Headliners, "look forward" to coming back year after year. That's what we need to work towards here.

When I think Civic Center I think, gloomy-looking brown building that occasionally has an event, otherwise, it's just sitting there.

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I'm still on my fact finding mission. Can anyone who's been around for a while tell of anything "fishy" they remember happening at the Civic Center so I can investigate those things further. I've been told if we want something to happen as far as a shake-up at the Civic Center we'd talk to TK and FSU. I suppose this is the case since they control the majority of the seats on the Authority. So in putting together my case, I have to be sensitive to this.

Also, does anyone know of any other comp. communities where the civic center has a partnership with a University?

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I'm still on my fact finding mission. Can anyone who's been around for a while tell of anything "fishy" they remember happening at the Civic Center so I can investigate those things further. I've been told if we want something to happen as far as a shake-up at the Civic Center we'd talk to TK and FSU. I suppose this is the case since they control the majority of the seats on the Authority. So in putting together my case, I have to be sensitive to this.

Also, does anyone know of any other comp. communities where the civic center has a partnership with a University?

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I am strolling down memory lane in the yahoo Tigersharks group to see if there was anything posted there about Civic center finance issues. I am trying to remember what happened in 2002 with the announcement that hockey would come back with a team called the Tallahassee Tide. I did see what news clip that mentioned there being a 3-year lease requirement (sames as the Titans) and a quote from Spencer saying he hoped that people would support the team.

I'll let you know if I find anything. If memory serves, however, the primary problem for the sharks was the owner not putting any money into the team and not wanting to do anything to make it work.

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(Edit: The only "fishy" things I sniffed had to do with the practice rink issue and scheduling events when the team would be in the playoffs -- though, as it turned out, the 15-point penalty imposed on us for the salary cap violations kept us out of the playoffs anyhow. My suggestion, after reading all those old posts, would be to see if Corcoran has good info, since he did all the Tigershark articles back then.)

June 7, 2001 Democrat article talks about the possibility of a CHL team coming to Tallahassee as long as the Tigersharks owner didn't sell the team's rights to Macon, allowing Macon to leave the CHL. Elmore, the sharks owner, of course, screwed us.

In the article, there was talk of the lease terms the team would have:

Spencer said the lease deal, which includes a guaranteed amount of luxury suite revenue but no part of the arena's parking

or concessions, would benefit all involved.

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That's REALLY good info Bahmo. Exactly the kind of stuff I'm looking for. Seems back then the Sharks were paying between $1714.28 - $2571.48 per game in rents. That's quite a BIT less than $10,000 per game they're charging the Titans. With those numbers, the Titan's could probably play their entire home season and not have to pay much more than $15,000. And the funny thing is, it would seem ice would be more difficult to maintain and more expensive to operate than the padded turf the football teams play on.

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That's REALLY good info Bahmo. Exactly the kind of stuff I'm looking for. Seems back then the Sharks were paying between $1714.28 - $2571.48 per game in rents. That's quite a BIT less than $10,000 per game they're charging the Titans. With those numbers, the Titan's could probably play their entire home season and not have to pay much more than $15,000. And the funny thing is, it would seem ice would be more difficult to maintain and more expensive to operate than the padded turf the football teams play on.
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I agree. However, it is certainly possible (if not likely) that the team had to pay extra for the icing of the arena, zamboni use, board placement, etc. Those direct costs simply wouldn't be charged when the team left because the services weren't performed. So, it may have been $2k per game plus a whole bunch of fees to get the place ready for hockey. I think the Titans own their equipment, and it has got to be much less costly to throw down the turn and hang the pads. I am pretty sure that the civic center owned all the ice-making and maintaining equipment.

In terms of ticket prices, it looks like you could get a season tickets in prime seats (1st 10 rows of lower bowl) for $450, which would be about $13/game.

I don't know whether the ice issue added or subtracted to the overall picture. On the one hand, getting the ice going meant that the center probably couldn't be used for other things on more days. On the other hand, the public skates were pretty popular, so they were able to generate some revenue with that.

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Here's some more info:

http://www.angelfire.com/fl5/tallahasseeti...chl_042502.html (discusses lease terms for the sharks and then the ACHL team that never materialized)

http://www.angelfire.com/fl5/tallahasseeti...ide_080602.html (discusses problems getting the team going -- no lease signed, allegations that the civic center was not giving them information to set a schedule and misled them about how much practice time there would be with the building of FSU's practice facility) EDIT: THIS MAY QUALIFY AS "FISHY"

There's also old discussion at the yahoo group skatetallahassee. Other than that one daughter of a director, no one seems to have good things to say about Spencer and the civic center, though they also freely blame everyone else equally.

By Jack Corcoran

DEMOCRAT STAFF WRITER The numbers appear to add up for the Civic Center.

...

It's certainly less risky than the final two years of the Civic Center's contract with the Tallahassee Tiger Sharks. The East Coast Hockey League team, which left town last summer, paid $4,850 per game in rent when it first arrived in 1994 but had the amount reduced to $2,500 per game for its last two seasons. The new team would be charged the higher rate, helping the arena project $111,791 in annual net profit.

...

Civic Center executive director Ron Spencer told the board Adams has agreed to pay the rent - $145,500 for the 30-game home schedule - in advance. In exchange, Adams would only have to provide a $150,000 letter of credit to ensure the team fulfills the terms of the three-year lease. An earlier version of the agreement included a $500,000 note for a five-year deal.

The Civic Center, attempting to keep its revenue options open for concerts and other events, would be able to force the team to move three games per season. The team would be entitled to recover additional expenses.

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Sorry to keep adding, but here's another article that is critical of Spencer and the civic center in terms of its negotiations with teams. A 2003 effort to get hockey ended because of the civic center's demand for a huge letter of credit. Apparently, Spencer changed his mind with the Titans, allowing them to simply post a $75k deposit.

http://www.angelfire.com/fl5/tallahasseeti...see_070303.html

Looks like the season ticket price info I posted earlier was for the Tallahassee Tide in 2002. $450 for 30 games (415 if paid a couple weeks before the season's start, and it came with free parking, which would have been $150 for 30 games).

Here's part of a story about Spencer making a deal with the Tigersharks to split everything 50-50:

http://www.accessmylibrary.com/comsite5/bi...id=0286-5613409

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Something interesting I pulled from this article...

He also made practice time - a thorny subject for years with the Tiger Sharks - an issue for the first time. He said Florida State's new basketball practice facility will not create as much ice time as he was originally led to believe. On top of that, he added that the lease agreement isn't quite a done deal.
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"Another note to ponder... does the Civic Center still belong to the Community, or has it become yet another FSU facility? (This is a debateable question) "

Well, FSU uses it 80% of the time. Without FSU, the Center is in debt up to it's eyeballs. It kind of is FSU's facility, but without FSU, they community wouldnt' have it available the other 20% of the time....or would likely have to pay some huge tax to keep it afloat.

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17-20 mens games with crowds that often resembled the Tigersharks or, on a good night, the Titans (except for the annual Duke contest).

15 or so women's games, which I cannot imagine made the civic center any money.

Graduations.

What else does FSU do there? There were more people there to see Dora the Explorer than there are when the men's team plays Winthrop and South Kentucky State A & M.

Certainly, the men's bball team is the feature performer there, but I don't think it is quite that close to an FSU facility just yet (though I wish that would happen so that we could build a civic center more in line with an area our size).

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