Report: If new arena is built, it could draw minors hockey
By Andrew McIntosh/Sacbee
Thursday, June 21, 2007
http://www.sacbee.com/100/story/233788.html
Sacramento would be an attractive market for a professional minor-league hockey team, and the region could support a club in a new 6,000- to 9,000-seat arena, according to a newly disclosed study prepared for Cal Expo in 2005.
The capital region's growing population and solid household incomes give its 1.75 million residents extra cash for sports and entertainment tickets, and a minor-league hockey team could anchor a mid-sized arena, the KPMG consulting group study found.
A Sacramento team in the ECHL's Pacific Division would join rival teams in Stockton, Fresno, Bakersfield, Las Vegas and possibly a Reno-based team that hopes to play in a new arena in 2008-09, the report said.
"Sacramento would be an attractive market for the ECHL," the report concluded after a study of the population and financial demographics of the cities that are home to the 25 "AA" league teams in the United States and Canada. "In addition, representatives of the ECHL indicated that Sacramento would be an attractive market if a suitable venue was available."
The Bee obtained the KPMG report from Cal Expo under the state Public Records Act.
Though no Sacramento hockey team is imminent, ECHL Commissioner Brian McKenna said three groups of investors have approached the league in recent years to discuss a Sacramento team.
McKenna said the first involved local investors, and two others involved investors from outside the Sacramento region. He declined to name the parties.
"Sacramento supports River Cats baseball well in the summer," Mckenna said. "We think that the city could support a hockey team in winter, too, with the right facility. We're bullish."
"The missing ingredient is an arena. Arco (Arena) is not a suitable venue," McKenna said.
Sacramento hockey team owners would have to pay $2 million to join the ECHL, the KPMG report says.
Who might be interested?
State documents show KPMG first delivered the Cal Expo arena feasibility report to Nick Nicora, a California-based vice president for Ovations, a company that provides food services and concessions to sports arenas, stadiums, fairs and convention centers.
Ovations provides food services at Cal Expo but is also part of the Comcast group of companies.
Comcast-Spectacor, another affiliate, owns the Philadelphia Flyers of the NHL and the Philadelphia Phantoms, the Flyers' American Hockey League affiliate.
Comcast doesn't own an ECHL team, but its Ovations affiliate manages food concessions at several arenas where ECHL teams play -- such as the Sovereign Bank Arena, the home of the Trenton Devils in New Jersey -- and it knows the ECHL well, spokesman Ike Richmond said.
Comcast-Spectacor President Peter Luukko said through a spokesman that the Flyers might be interested in an ECHL affiliation in Sacramento. "But it probably makes more sense for a West Coast team," Luukko added.
The ECHL grants member teams such as the Stockton Thunder exclusive territory rights for a 50-mile radius.
A new arena on Cal Expo lands or anywhere east of the sprawling state fair property would put a Sacramento team just outside that protected area -- 52 miles.
Having rival hockey teams in Sacramento and Stockton might be positive for both teams, the KPMG report suggested.
"ECHL representatives did indicate that having two of its teams within close proximity could potentially have a positive impact on both franchises through the creation of a rivalry," it stated.
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