urbanSTL

As a Rams and Cards season ticket buyer, I can say I am spending a lot less money in the city this October compared to last. So CVC may be happy, but is the city and state making out?


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gary kreie wrote:As a Rams and Cards season ticket buyer, I can say I am spending a lot less money in the city this October compared to last. So CVC may be happy, but is the city and state making out?


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With so many local fans and tailgaters The hotels and bars didn't make much from the Rams. I would assume they make significantly more from conventions.

I worked in a hotel a couple of blocks from the dome for about a year. I can only extrapolate from my own 1998 experiences . . . but yes. We got quite a lot of business from conventions and very very little (almost none) from football games, with the exception of the Missouri/Illinois game, which brought in quite a crowd. We actually got quite a bit more business from Cardinals games, even though Busch was much further away. (This was the Big Mac season, so there was quite a lot of hype. But things generally got better after, so I suspect things are even more lopsided now.)

eh, I think everyone knew the CVC could book more conventions without football. Frank frames it like we made a choice between the two.

I never tailgated, but I did buy lunch and beverages inside the stadium and often outside the stadium before and after games. And we paid for parking as well and paid ticket tax fees. The city cut things from their budget anticipating less revenue. I haven't attended anything in the dome other than the Rams charity game since last year. So Show-Me Institute substitution isn't working for me. But maybe Beyoncé and unexpected conventions bring in 60K times 10 folks per fall, but I doubt it.


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I suppose it all depends on how many events they can actually book. But how many home games actually had a capacity crowd? I'm guessing not many. Maybe more like 30-40K was more typical in recent years? Also remember; the average convention plays out across several days, so one convention with ten thousand people might well generate as much or more revenue than a football game with sixty thousand. (Twenty or thirty thousand hotel nights. Three days hall rental. Sixty to ninety thousand meals. More hours for employees at the facilities setting up, tearing down, and just babysitting events.) I can tell you with fair confidence that conventions and concerts do, in fact, require more labor than sporting events, having worked in theatre in Columbia for twenty years. Worked lots of conventions at the Hearnes Center and several out at the Holiday Inn Expo Center. Worked basketball and football games. Rigged a ton of concerts. Even worked the Stones at Faurot. It's all going to depend on the number and size of events, but one for one a big convention or concert is more labor and probably more economic activity than a large sporting event. It's not even close, really.

I said 60k because that was the average over 21 years. And on years where we were in the playoffs, we had additional games. I would hope CVC would get creative on ways to use this huge indoor space in the middle of America. How about something like the giant rock concert in the desert with both the Stones and the remaining Beatles.


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And I should clarify a little; when I say the labor isn't close I'm not counting the work the performers put into it beforehand practicing and preparing. I don't really have a good way to measure that. (Aside from saying that professional performers put in a heck of a lot more work practicing than most folks realize.) But a lot of that economic impcat isn't local, or at least isn't exclusively so; athletes might live in town only part time. The headliners at a concert usually don't live in town at all. (Though a lot of backup artists actually do. The thirty piece string section doesn't typically tour with the band.) So I'm not really thinking about that when I say the average concert or convention requires more work. My apologies on that count. It may be close if only on account of the large number of players on the typical sports team, even if setup for a sporting event is more modest. (And they do require more production all the time. But since they're mostly the same the setup is often comparatively permanent. Comparatively.)

Nevada has approved $750 million in public funding for a new Raiders stadium in Vegas.

Sheesh.

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/news/nevad ... 03634.html

framer wrote:Nevada has approved $750 million in public funding for a new Raiders stadium in Vegas.

Sheesh.

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/news/nevad ... 03634.html

Davis stating Raiders would come up with $500 million if Nevada Gov signs. Assuming part of that is $100 million payoff on Rams getting LA & another $100-200 from NFL stadium slush fund. I believe the Raiders move a done deal when Nevada Gov signs off on it. They just have to get the owners get together for cocktail hour in order to have their official vote.

Maybe in a few years you see NFL talk seriously about two team expansion and let San Antonio, St. Louis and London or Mexico City fight over who can give the NFL the most dollars.

KSDK - Why St. Louis might be better off without the Rams

http://www.ksdk.com/sports/nfl/rams/why ... /341116057

While I agree that the Dome and Convention Center are better off without the Rams, the Rams would not have been playing there if they stayed.

I am not at all saying I supported the structure of the new stadium deal, but I wonder, if it had been built as proposed by Peacock & company, if STL would have been better off, the same or worse. With the Dome cleared up for other events and the revenues streaming in from NFL Football, I wonder where STL would be, say 10 years from now. I have to think the Landing would have seen a resurgence, along with whatever else could have sprung up around the North Riverfront. I guess we will never know.

Regardless of the situation, Frank's piece leaves out that fact, that no matter what, the Rams would not have been in the Dome long term.

What can help the Landing? Dome, Highway access, casino, CityArchRiver aren't doing it.

quincunx wrote:What can help the Landing? Dome, Highway access, casino, CityArchRiver aren't doing it.

The Arch grounds actually being open will help; in theory tourists should be able to park there and walk to the Arch, and maybe they'll look around at stuff in the Landing while they're there. Right now there's no reason to park there if your goal is to go to the Arch itself, and that's been the case for about three years now.

-RBB

That should be the place for live music venues. There was nothing like a concert on the Landing, at Mississippi Nights. It just has that cool vibe, being by the river, Arch and skyline in the background, cobblestone, etc. There is no reason that the Landing should not work in that regard. Other than venues scattered all over town, along with the Pageant & Delmar Hall, we have no music cluster. The Landing would be the perfect place.

DogtownBnR wrote:While I agree that the Dome and Convention Center are better off without the Rams, the Rams would not have been playing there if they stayed.

I am not at all saying I supported the structure of the new stadium deal, but I wonder, if it had been built as proposed by Peacock & company, if STL would have been better off, the same or worse. With the Dome cleared up for other events and the revenues streaming in from NFL Football, I wonder where STL would be, say 10 years from now. I have to think the Landing would have seen a resurgence, along with whatever else could have sprung up around the North Riverfront. I guess we will never know.

Regardless of the situation, Frank's piece leaves out that fact, that no matter what, the Rams would not have been in the Dome long term.

Cusumano is a joke and that report was like it was from a lover spurned. We need dispassionate analysis on such matters and he, and frankly the large majority of local media, is unable to provide it.

Why is it a spurned lovers comment? It seems to me Kitty Ratcliffe and Steve O'Laughlin laid out the numbers pretty squarely. The Rams brought bupkuss to St. Louis. In raw economic terms this really is a win win. A football stadium hosting eight or ten games a year surrounded by a sea of parking was going to do nothing to help anything. The riverfront stadium was a bad deal that wouldn't have helped the landing. Pro football is bad economics for anyone but the owners and a few of the players, thanks to the generous subsidies we hand out. I'd have no objection to seeing another team here . . . as long as we don't subsidize them like we did the Rams. That subsidy has pissed me off since day one. (And it had me rooting for the Cardinals to move to Anchorage when they demanded similar subsidies. Even when they got smaller ones I was upset. I'm glad they didn't leave, in the end, but the subsidies still bother me. Even though we actually get more revenue out of baseball. More games. Actual hotel room rentals. More tourism as a result. [Much much much more.] More modest tax write-offs. Just a better deal all around.)

^ Prior to the NFL leaving, Cusumano - as with almost all the sports media - was saying how great the NFL economics were for Saint Louis. Now that they are gone it's a total change in tune. I agree with you that the proposed stadium didn't make sense, however, I also agree with Dogtown that Frank's report didn't address key points.

Can we vote to put this thread into the archives and unlock the vault if the NFL decides to expand. Its like trying to kick a dead horse that is not even there anymore.

dredger wrote:Can we vote to put this thread into the archives and unlock the vault if the NFL decides to expand. Its like trying to kick a dead horse that is not even there anymore.

+1

All right. I can take a hint. I hate to see useful things wasted. Render the pony down before it gets too rank and archive the sucker.

I just want to gloatingly report that the Rams were booed in LA on Sunday.

The dome and the region are two different things. An UMSL economist said it might be better economically to have no sports teams in St Louis. Should that be the goal?