Mike Nutter interview, part 6

Stephen – Since you didn’t see any connection in my comments to your post on the 300,000 attendance, I will attempt to comment on Mr. Nutter’s interview part 6, where the items were brought up.

As of the 58th home game this season, the announced total attendance has been listed at 298,766 of which at least 20,600 do not count toward the 275,000 before the city gets a $1.00 per person Performance License Fee from Hardball Capital. So that means that, as of today, Hardball owes the city a total of $3,106.00. Since the Stadium Mainenance Fund, by contract, must be paid $230,000 per year by the city, and the city pays, by contract, all the utilities (estimated to be $50,000 for this 9 month year)which leaves them with a bill totaling $280,000.
To make this up in 12 more home games, plus possibly 4 playoff games, they would need to have an attendance of 276,892 paid fans, or 17,306 per game! That’s over twice the best attendance on July 19th when the game was rained out after a few innings. And, Mr. Nutter says that the other events will make up the difference!
Well, he mentioned the one event that pulled in 250 people for the Brooks Construction anniversary – It would take 554 of these size events to make up one half the shortfall to date! And if you check, you will find they have had only 3 events of this size in the 5 months! There is no way, unless changes are made in the contract, that the city can avoid having to put an item in the 2010 budget to cover this expense – and it all has to come out of tax revenue!

The other point that this raises is who is getting the millions being spent at Parkview Field? It sure isn’t the entity that is paying for the facility! Hardball has taken in over $2.5 million in ticket sales and suite rentals to date. Plus they get the entire profit from the concessions (with the city paying the electric bill to cool the beer and the gas bill to cook the food!) which has been estimated to gross over $1.5 million to date. How much will the city pay this year for the lease of, and construction costs on only the stadium? Per Pat Roller’s figures for 2009 it will amount to $19.5 million. And for the next 29 years we get to pay $3.5 million per year just for the lease so that the borrowing expenses can be paid. What a great deal – Who is getting shafted? It sure isn’t Hardball!

And so far the average attendance at baseball games is running only 383 fans per game more than the Wizards saw in their first year, 1993. So the city is paying $19.5 million this year to increase the use by 383 fans per game! Wow, what a deal!