NHL: Blue Jackets losing $12-mil a year, in economic peril

Posted: November 29th, 2009 | Author: Zim | Filed under: Hockey, Kegerator Nation, NHL | No Comments »

Will Columbus once again become a minor league city?  The Blue Jackets are in financial trouble, need fix that isn’t quickly coming.

• With their founding owner John H. McConnell now dead a year, the Columbus Blue Jackets are in the red ink bad…
• The NHL brand is leaking cash and the mid-level market Jackets suffering from it as badly as anyone…
• Ugly reality time: Trouble with lease, city, county et al, there’s no easy solution and it could cost Columbus the Blue Jackets.

by Mike Zimmer, Jackets fan

I’ve held off on this story a couple weeks having looked around for any follow up in recent weeks after finding it.  The report wasn’t good news for hockey fans in Ohio, in general fans of the NHL’s Columbus Blue Jackets.  The team is leaking money at a pace it cannot cope with for long and there is no easy fix coming nor anyone willing to step to as of right now.

According to various reports including yahoo (http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/news?slug=ap-bluejackets-future&prov=ap&type=lgns) and The Dispatch (http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2009/11/06/CBJ_reax.ART_ART_11-06-09_A1_D3FJDFB.html?sid=101) have sung the same sad tune.  The Blue Jackets are losing $12-million a year and no one can afford it.

Worse, I got an e-mail from the Jackets to respond to something in the Columbus Business Journal, (http://columbus.bizjournals.com/columbus/poll/index.html) which was asking me, as a fan who has visited their site, has purchased merchandise from and has bought tickets from, if the Blue Jackets are viable and valuable to me.  Sure, sure, it’s a juking the stats maneuver, but the simple fact that they have to ask someone who has been a customer since day one and even was a season ticket holder to the Columbus Destroyers of the Arena Football League, there might be a huge problem on the way.

The major factors in the Jackets losing money exists partially on how they came to be.  To get the NHL to Columbus, they needed an arena.  To get this done, they had to beg, borrow and steal a bit and do some creative manipulating of the money and handing out bits and pieces of the venture in exchange for the capital to put the organization together.  It was a solid plan back in the late 1990′s with a booming economy and dreams of becoming even more of a big league city with a professional team.

However, getting Nationwide to help pay to build the stadium and for them to hand over control to the county whom the team then pays rent, well you have a revenue problem on two fronts: one, no naming rights and the county wants to have a cut and control of the lease.

Getting other backers to move into the Arena District and getting the city on board with the whole renovation there in, lost the Blue Jackets another revenue stream, parking.  Oh, and they’re not getting much of that tax raised on the businesses in the area.  While the city and county repeatedly couldn’t pass a stadium bill because the voters rebuked it, the team did the best it could and made it happen anyways.  And, for a good long time it’s held water.

The team is strapped for revenue streams while having to pay too many expenses such as salaries, leases, taxes and operating costs.  It also has a private plane and most of the benefactors of the team despite their massive wealth in some cases are in deed tapped out a bit.  The McConnell family may be one of them.

The problem is, Mr. McConnell is dead and the economy is absolute shit.  The combination of the two plus the fact that the NHL brand it shit, well, it’s made for a lot of shit.

When the NHL went on strike, it really put a big old black eye on the Blue Jackets.  Not to their fans, the fans are there, they turn out in droves and support the team to the tune of around capacity (15,000) for 40-dates a year and trust me that ain’t cheap.  However, outside of the city of Columbus, no one seems to hold them dear because frankly, they don’t hold the NHL dear.

When Ohio got lambasted by the economic downturn, it worsened in a bad way and now, the team like every other business in this recession is feeling the nasty pinch.

It will be a crying shame if the team has to be sold off to someone that may not have the best intentions with it, if indeed a fix in Columbus doesn’t some how happen.  With leadership of buffoon Mayor Michael B. Coleman (who’s house keeps burning down, whose wife keeps getting DUI’s and whose political career has been seriously tarnished after a failed gubernatorial bid and some corrupt political dealings in the city) and the idiots in Franklin Country Commission, I find it hard to think that there will be one either.

The Blue Jackets are a Columbus treasure.  The team a feather in the cap of a city trying to become big league (and no MLS doesn’t count).  The Arena District is one of the best places to visit in Central Ohio for a great meal, good entertainment and to see that gem of an arena.  Even if you don’t like hockey or the NHL all that much, the Blue Jackets operation is top notch, first class entertainment on a big league level.

I do hope that something can stop the red ink from flowing and keep the Jackets playing in Columbus.  I don’t like the sound of the Kansas City Blue Jackets nor the Hamilton Blue Jackets or Toronto Blue Jackets for that matter.  Whatever happened to their old tried and true moniker used else where but clear as ever in Columbus “Our team, Our town?”.

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