by
Nora Flaherty on May 21st, 2014
The Glens Falls Civic Center. Photo: Doug Kerr, Creative Commons, some rights reserved
Last week I wrote about some of our region’s many hockey-related goings on. But I missed one big thing: Also last week, the Adirondack Flames (American Hockey League affiliate of the Calgary Flames) committed to make Glens Falls its new home.
As the Glens Falls Post-Star reports, the city’s contract with the Flames sets a minimum price of $150,000 per year for naming rights to the city’s civic center, where the team will play. Of that, the city (which owns the arena) would get $100,000. Any revenue above that would be split evenly. According to the paper, “the city has made several attempts to sell naming rights over the past decade, but the economy and uncertainly over the future of hockey have stymied those efforts.”
For the last five seasons, the Adirondack Phantoms (the AHL affiliate of the NHL’s Philadelphia Flyers) have played in Glens Falls; they’re moving this year to Allentown, PA.
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Nora–Any word on whether the minor league team will receive any subsidy from area taxpayers in return for relocating?
OA: According the Post-Star, the team doesn’t get a subsidy from the city, as such. There’s a flat fee per game night for renting the building, plus a split of the concessions. The Flames will get some incentive payment for each round of the playoffs they make, as the city claims they will more than make up for it with increased sales tax and concessions revenues. The only subsidy we city taxpayers (not area taxpayers, mind you) are paying is for operational expenses of the building itself. This figure was in the $600,000-$700,000 even with the previous Phantoms hockey team.
Thanks, Brian. Good to know.