http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20120719_Impoverished_Chester_to_Philly_Union__Pay_up_.html for whatever it's worth, the $20M revenue would have ranked #2 in the league according to the famous Forbes valuations from 2008. So there's that.
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...llage-owned-stadium-bridgeview-soccer-stadium some nice parts. Well that last part is good for the FIRE and MLS, but not for the city I guess. Chicago politics. Why not right? This part is not very good.
This is incorrectly phrased if you ask me. The stadium didn't borrow any money so it doesn't have any loan payments. The town borrowed the money so the town has loan payments. They could have said, "the town hasn't received enough money from the stadium to meet the town's loan payments" which would have been correct. I don't see anywhere in the article how the town expected to get revenue from the stadium. Are they charging the Fire rent or getting some amount per event? It doesn't say. The writer just keeps saying "the stadium has come up short" when it means the town has come up short.
True, I guess what he means is the revenues generated by the stadium to the town are not enough to cover the loan. Naming rights to the stadium, Parking revenue (For non Fire events I imagine), concert revenue, other sports revenue (the red stars, the women football league, Lacrosse, High School games), alcohol taxes, sales taxes, etc.
Some thing tells me AIG is making money out of this deal even when the Village is not. I assume some well connected (to the Mayor) people/companies are also making out like bandits, construction firms and companies that provide services to the stadium, while the tax payer gets holding the bag. Come on people of Boston/DC, why can you get with the program and build some new S.S.S?
I guess this is why FC Dallas has so many non-soccer events. Does anyone know how the Fire stadium stacks up against other MLS stadiums in the number of non-soccer events?
They planned on making $8 million in profits a year on the stadium? What is the Fire paying for rent? It sounds like someone vastly overestimated the potential income from concerts and other events.
Based on comments from New York fans, I'm assuming that the building are all called something like... Toros Rojos Mexican Cantina The Villas Give You Wings Apartments Red Bull Office Park etc.
I think this was covered in the necro part of this thread, but what that article seems to be missing is that the city also bought a big chunk of land in which they hoped to put development around the stadium right before the kickoff of the Great Recession. Stadium construction, at $98 million, represents just over 40% of the principle on that debt. With land acquisition and infrastructure, you're talking maybe a little over half. And the real failure, the part that they've gotten little to no revenue out of so far, is the other half. Basically, Bridgeview is feeling the pinch because of overpaying for real estate right before the crash, just like a ton of other American cities. If that whole proposal had been a mixed-use real estate development, rather than including a soccer stadium, they'd be worse off, not better.
Yeah, the city owns more land at TP than they need for parking. It would help if they could just sell an outlot at the corner of Harlem and 79th. To answer the revenue stream questions above, the Fire contributes something like $1-2m/yr to Bridgeview. Some of the revenue streams to Bridgeview that I recall are naming rights: $500k to Bridgeview, $250k to the Fire, parking revenue and smallish rent payments, less than $1m.
The stadium is supposed to be hosting around 10 non-soccer events a year but its not. When AEG left, so did the ability to fill the stadium with concerts. Losing those 10 concerts is losing ~$15 million in revenue from tickets alone. Tack on parking, beer, food concessions, and you can see how the stadium is short maybe $20 million a year in revenue. Ultimately what's going to have to happen for this to be truly successful is the Village will have to sell the stadium to the Fire at cut-throat pricing. The Village will then take the bubble of cash and use it as they see fit while taxing their populace to finish paying off the debt. In turn the Fire would be able to control their own stadium and begin some needed upgrades and improvements including some of the development that's needed to upgrade the area to increase tax revenues for the Village without continuing to increase property taxes. The increase in tax revenues from development might offset the cut-throat pricing for the Village. Will this happen? I doubt it, but it's one of the only ways I see this working for both parties.
Interesting story about BMO's profitability. It's made a good amount of money for MLSE and the city of Toronto since it opened.
Some cities would just try to reclaim the property under the eminent domain and then find an independent operator to bring in the revenues.
Luckily, AEG got the sweetheart deal for the free land to build the Home Depot Center.... and they whore out the stadium constantly to add to their revenue stream. Including getting rent from Chivas USA. Too bad it was built in BFE. tm
So much for teams losing money. Funny how the world works. When I posted in the Roma thread how they should rent out their new stadium (after its built) to Lazio, everyone had a conniption fit.
The problem here is that it IS the Village of Brodgeview that runs the stadium and books concerts. They should outsource it but then there goes all those salaries for your loyal friends....
Did you read anything in this thread? MLS and the Fire didn't do anything wrong. The City of Bridgeview is the one that screwed up here.
I get that but putting ourselvesi nthese positions hurting our league hurting our brand ruining our revenue opportunities. depressing.