Metro Phoenix Sports Venues Seek More Than Just Games
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Dale Adams emerged from the bowels of Gila River Arena, home of the Arizona Coyotes, and walked out in front of thousands of empty seats. Adams is the venue’s general manager. He works for AEG Facilities, an international company the city of Glendale pays millions of dollars a year to manage.
“The ice will go in for hockey in September, prior to the hockey season,” Adams said.
Summer will still be busy for Adams and his team. They’ll host rock, country and rap concerts. But that’s not all. There are plans for an extreme water show with jet skis and pyrotechnics.
“We’re going to actually put a liner in here and this will become a big pool,” Adams said.
The idea sounds wild. But Adams pointed to a historical connection.
“You can go back to Roman times with the Roman Colosseum,” Adams said. “They filled that with water, too.”
Sports and entertainment venues have become big business since gladiators roamed the Colosseum. But pro teams only use them for part of the year, which makes booking other events crucial.
“To reach our goals, we’ve got to come up with a lot of other content,” Adams said. “In order to make sure we make the bottom line.”
Non-baseball content is a key issue in the Arizona Diamondbacks lawsuit against the Maricopa County Stadium District. Lawyers for the club have tied it to a lack of funds to repair and upgrade Chase Field. The District has pushed back on that notion.
Regardless of who’s right, Chase Field was the newest and biggest of the Valley’s three indoor sports and entertainment venues, when it opened in 1998. Now there are five.
“For non-baseball events, the stadium, really, it’s a baseball stadium first,” said Daren Frank, executive director for the Maricopa County Stadium District. “Acoustically it’s not the greatest.”
The district takes in $650,000 a year from outside events, plus potential profit sharing. The profit-sharing threshold has been hit in three out of the last six years, Frank said.
“For bigger spectacles, (Chase Field) works really well, such as a football game, such as a soccer match,” he said.
The district has already spent about $20 million to fix water damage caused by pressure washing. Officials plan to spend $35-$40 million more in the coming years.
The Diamondbacks play at least 81 home games a year, which means the repairs get done during the offseason, and there’s a juggling act to schedule other events.
“It takes a lot of coordination between the team, the county and then our booking manager Select Artists (Associates)," Frank said.
Select Artists Associates was one of two local companies that submitted bids to win the next contract as Chase Field’s booking manager. But weeks before the current deal ends, officials canceled the selection process.
The plan going forward is to cast a wider net, said Kevin Tyne, chief procurement officer for Maricopa County.
“Seek out a broader range of respondents and see if we can do better,” Tyne said.
Canceling the process had nothing to do with the Diamondbacks’ lawsuit, Tyne said.
“We, in fact, gave the Diamondbacks the opportunity to bid on this specific solicitation,” Tyne said. “For whatever reason, they chose not to.”
The Diamondbacks declined to comment on the selection process.
With 100 games left in the regular season, the club sits in second place in the National League West. The team’s play at Chase Field is a big reason why.
“I try to go a few times a year just because I love baseball,” said Brooke Burchfield, who went to a game during the current home stand. “I grew up playing softball.”
Burchfield is in the coveted 18-to 35-year-old demographic, and she’s saving to buy tickets for the upcoming Metallica concert at University of Phoenix Stadium, which is home of the Arizona Cardinals.
“I have a few friends that would want to go,” Burchfield said. “But I think I’d want to take my mom just because we’ve had a crazy year and I think she would enjoy going.”
Still, the Chandler resident would rather see the show at Chase Field.
“It’s farther when you have to go to Glendale or areas like that,” Burchfield said. “It’d be nicer to have something easier for those of us in the East Valley.”
Bands build tours to match the venues they play. Larger places can yield more cash. When a group like Metallica wants to do a show in Phoenix, they have a choice – Chase Field, which can hold about 48,000 people, or University of Phoenix Stadium, which can hold up to 73,000.
If tickets cost $100 each, and the show sold out, the difference would be $2.5 million dollars in revenue.
