Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Another Black Eye to Sports in Ottawa
I shook my head at the announcement that the Ottawa Rapidz, after just one season, is already filing for bankruptcy. They signed a two-year lease with the city and after talks for an extension collapsed, the owners of the Rapidz decided to pull the plug on the franchise.
I'm not going to claim I know why the negotiations broke down. My best guess is the city isn't really interested in keeping the stadium up and it will be demolished to make way for more condos or a shopping centre, as many city councilors have gone on about the land value of the area and what they could get for it.
I want to show, copied directly from the Can-Am league's website, how Ottawa did in attendance in comparison to the rest of the league:
As you can see, if you consider the brand of baseball (third tier, with no connection to Major League Baseball), the fact Ottawa finished dead last with a horrible team, and the weather was awful this past summer, Ottawa actually did better than many expected showing up in better numbers than the AAA Lynx, and was on par with the rest of the league. So the fans aren't at fault. The owners and city officials are the ones to blame here for failing to compromise or hiding their intentions on their desire to want the franchise to survive.
Something like this obviously isn't good for Ottawa's sports image (The Lynx, Ottawa Rebel, Renegades and now Rapidz are all franchises that have left within the last five years) and this might be another factor to hurt Eugene Melnyk's chances for an MLS team to play in this city.
Not the end of the world by any means, but it still kinda sucks.
I'm not going to claim I know why the negotiations broke down. My best guess is the city isn't really interested in keeping the stadium up and it will be demolished to make way for more condos or a shopping centre, as many city councilors have gone on about the land value of the area and what they could get for it.
I want to show, copied directly from the Can-Am league's website, how Ottawa did in attendance in comparison to the rest of the league:
| Team | Yesterday | Total To Date | Openings | Average | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quebec | 140,933 | 44 | 3,203 | |||
| Brockton | 132,785 | 44 | 3,018 | |||
| Atlantic City | 124,430 | 45 | 2,765 | |||
| New Jersey | 103,817 | 45 | 2,307 | |||
| Ottawa | 101,073 | 46 | 2,197 | |||
| Worcester | 90,127 | 43 | 2,096 | |||
| Sussex | 80,500 | 47 | 1,713 | |||
| Nashua | 69,995 | 45 | 1,555 | |||
As you can see, if you consider the brand of baseball (third tier, with no connection to Major League Baseball), the fact Ottawa finished dead last with a horrible team, and the weather was awful this past summer, Ottawa actually did better than many expected showing up in better numbers than the AAA Lynx, and was on par with the rest of the league. So the fans aren't at fault. The owners and city officials are the ones to blame here for failing to compromise or hiding their intentions on their desire to want the franchise to survive.
Something like this obviously isn't good for Ottawa's sports image (The Lynx, Ottawa Rebel, Renegades and now Rapidz are all franchises that have left within the last five years) and this might be another factor to hurt Eugene Melnyk's chances for an MLS team to play in this city.
Not the end of the world by any means, but it still kinda sucks.
# posted by SBP : 8:23 PM
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I blame the ownership. They've left $1.4M in debt to creditors, yet had a decent showing in attendance, as you mention.
If any sports team owner thinks a new franchise is going to break even in the first year, they shouldn't be owning a team in the first place.
If they didn't expect to be this far in the red after year one, I question their ability to plan effectively. They must have done a simple calculation at one point along the lines of:
46 games x 2000 tickets x $10 =
$920,000.
If they didn't think they could get a competitive team on the field for that figure, they should have stopped the process right there.
The fact that they went into debt more than one and a half times their revenue projections, and then folded, says to me that they didn't have a real plan to grow this franchise properly.
The real losers in this, aside from Ottawa baseball fans, is the league at large. You can't play baseball with an uneven number of teams in the league. I'm curious as to what the commish is going to do.
If any sports team owner thinks a new franchise is going to break even in the first year, they shouldn't be owning a team in the first place.
If they didn't expect to be this far in the red after year one, I question their ability to plan effectively. They must have done a simple calculation at one point along the lines of:
46 games x 2000 tickets x $10 =
$920,000.
If they didn't think they could get a competitive team on the field for that figure, they should have stopped the process right there.
The fact that they went into debt more than one and a half times their revenue projections, and then folded, says to me that they didn't have a real plan to grow this franchise properly.
The real losers in this, aside from Ottawa baseball fans, is the league at large. You can't play baseball with an uneven number of teams in the league. I'm curious as to what the commish is going to do.
# posted by 
: 9:02 AM, October 02, 2008
: 9:02 AM, October 02, 2008
City of Ottawa Source indicates Ottawa Baseball Stadium to be taken over by established Swedish team with solid financial resources
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# posted by : 8:24 PM, October 02, 2008
: 8:24 PM, October 02, 2008Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
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