Some see obstacles to S.A.'s NFL quest
09/22/2005
Travis E. Poling
Express-News Staff Writer
San Antonio can pack a stadium and has a rapidly growing corporate base, but some NFL observers still question whether it can play pro football economics.
Fans bought nearly 100,000 tickets to three home games for the New Orleans Saints in the Alamodome, yet the NFL's commissioner this week publicly dismissed San Antonio as a "small market." The league is angling for the nation's No. 2 media market, Los Angeles, which could fatten TV deals.
"Yes, attendance is big," said John Wolohan, head of the Sport Management & Media department at Ithaca College in New York. "It's nice to fill a stadium with fans, and it looks good on TV. But the truth is, to make a team viable they have to make other money."
That includes the ability to sell luxury suites, collect parking revenue and garner corporate sponsorships — clout NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue doubts San Antonio has. Neither is the Alamodome the prototypical NFL venue.
"If community leaders are serious about their long-term prospects for an NFL franchise, they have to understand that the dome is not a facility where a team could play long term," said Marc Ganis, president of Chicago-based sports marketing company Sportscorp Ltd.
"The dome is fabulous for what it is used for (conventions, the Final Four, the Alamo Bowl), but we can't make the mistake of making it into something that it's not. And what it's not is a 21st-century NFL facility."
Nevertheless, San Antonio isn't giving up.
Local leaders and Saints executives Wednesday began a two-day corporate barnstorming tour to enlist support of leaders in South and Central Texas.
San Antonio has a history of quixotic NFL runs — being passed over for league expansion or used as a bargaining chip to get taxpayer dollars for new venues in existing markets.
Leaders believe this time is different.
The city's expanding corporate base, the loss of the Superdome as a venue to a massive hurricane and the lack of a game plan to get a team in Los Angeles could change things, they contend.
Now "probably is San Antonio's best chance to get ahead," said former Mayor Ed Garza, who met with NFL officials three times during his four-year tenure with little hope of a team.
San Antonio "is arguably the best underserved market for professional sports in the country, and I've felt that way about it for a number of years," Sportscorp's Ganis said.
"If you are looking empirically for markets that make sense for an NFL franchise, the San Antonio/Austin area has a lot of good fundamentals, including income in the hands of a broad base, population and a growing corporate community."
B.J. "Red" McCombs, the former Minnesota Vikings owner who has labored for an NFL team in San Antonio for decades, said economic conditions "are much more favorable today than they have been, and I don't think there is any question that the fan base could support a team."
McCombs also said the dome is an immediate place to play and is proven to be expandable, giving it a leg up on other cities now.
Nevertheless, earlier this week Tagliabue told the New Orleans Times-Picayune he wouldn't entertain any "small markets" as relocation or expansion teams.
Even if league owners overrule the NFL czar in the future, there is still the issue of finding the dollars to build more luxury suites in the dome and selling them.
Kim Babiak Phillips, vice president of marketing for the Houston Texans, said the sale of luxury suites is an important revenue source for NFL teams because the clubs do not have to share it.
The Texans have 188 luxury suites. Irving's Texas Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys, has a league-high 380.
"It's not the lifeblood, but it definitely helps a team generate more local revenue," Phillips said. "But you need to have that excitement at the corporate level. It doesn't matter how many suites you have if you don't have that excitement."
Teams can be successful with fewer luxury suites, Phillips said, if they have other lucrative revenue streams. Naming rights to the stadium and control of concessions, signage and parking are other sources of revenue.
A city-commissioned study in 2000 by Alamodome architects Marmon Mok and Kansas City-based HOK Sports estimated it would cost more than $136 million to upgrade the Alamodome to NFL standards.
The conceptual analysis revealed the Alamodome lacks an adequate number of luxury suites and premium seats and that it needs other improvements, including an expansion of the locker rooms.
According to the study, a four-story widening of the dome on two sides would help increase the number of luxury suites to 106; the 12-year-old stadium currently has only 34 luxury suites available for use by the Saints.
Alamodome Director Mike Abington said the Marmon Mok analysis was a "cursory study" only and that a more definitive analysis would be needed before improvements were made.
Abington said expansion teams routinely generate revenue through the sale of personal seat licenses.
"The sale of PSLs could generate significant revenue to be used for needed upgrades to the (Alamodome)," he said.
Finding corporate dollars, a market in which the Spurs have struggled, will be another challenge for a team in San Antonio.
But the city and the region have taken a few economic leaps since the last serious run at a team, in 1992.
According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the four-county San Antonio Metropolitan Statistical Area has gone from 30,821 businesses in 1994 to 34,572 in 2003. Large businesses with more than 500 employees have increased from 88 to 118 in the same period.
Those figures don't include other major employers coming into the market such as Toyota Motor Manufacturing and Washington Mutual.
What's more, the Austin area increased its business base significantly and has gone from 49 companies with more than 500 workers in 1999 to 77 in 2003.
Mayor Phil Hardberger believes a team in the area could draw support from other South Texas markets such as Laredo, Corpus Christi and the Rio Grande Valley.
Henry Cisneros, representing the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce, joined Saints representatives Wednesday on whirlwind tour of Corpus Christi, McAllen and Laredo to drum up the support of business leaders, including suite sales, in the Alamodome this season. The tour ends today at an Austin luncheon with business leaders and Gov. Rick Perry.
If the experience of the Spurs is any indication, a South Texas football team may struggle for corporate dollars.
The Spurs have had to dig deep to sell their 54 suites for 41 home games in the SBC Center. What's more, most of the corporate sponsorships for the WNBA Silver Stars and American Hockey League Rampage — both franchises owned by Spurs Sports & Entertainment — have been tied to packages with the three-time NBA champion Spurs, said Russ Bookbinder, the team's executive vice president.
However strong the San Antonio pitch, with 760,000 television households, the Alamo City stands in the shadow of Los Angeles, whose metro area tops 5.5 million television households and would make the NFL television contract more valuable.
Under the latest contracts with several TV networks, the NFL will get about $4 billion a season to divide among 32 team owners. That's up from the $2.8 billion per season under the previous eight-year contract.
A team in Los Angeles would make that wallet even fatter, Ithaca College's Wolohan said.
Economics and stadiums aside — Los Angeles doesn't have an acceptable venue either — the NFL may be simply interested in claiming territory devoid of rabid fans. San Antonio is Cowboys country.
"There are many other hurdles unrelated to the market that San Antonio and Austin can't do much about that would stop a team from coming into the area," Sportscorp's Ganis said. "You have to factor in where the league's interests are. The league may feel that the Texas market is better served by just having teams in Houston and Dallas."
LINK
So they do come but that doesn't mean they will stay for long without the needed help mentioned in the article.
Look at Jacksonville, they have to seal off some sections of the Gator Bowl (its still the Gator Bowl to me hate those corporate naming rights) to avoid blackouts.
Will the Jaguars even BE in Jacksonville in 5 years?
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
