Submitted by RSimmons on Thu, 02/09/2012 - 12:18am.
I'm a huge baseball fan too, I love going to Sharks games and go to a few Mudcats games every season too.
The number I keep hearing for a 6000 seat Stadium is 40 million, bonding at Wilmington's AA+ rating the debt service will be roughly $80 million over 30 years. A year that is 2.7 million in debt service. A minor league team plays at most 140 games a year. Roughly half of them are home games. So 70 games a year. If we filled all 6000 seats, every game, all season, each seat would have to generate a little under $8 in revenue per seat to meet the debt service alone. What is the cost of an average minor league ticket? $8.
It just makes no financial sense for this city and we don't the fan base to sell out a stadium every game. The Mudcats are the most popular minor league in the region, They draw an average of 3400 per game.
The numbers just don't work
I'm a huge baseball fan too, I love going to Sharks games and go to a few Mudcats games every season too.
The number I keep hearing for a 6000 seat Stadium is 40 million, bonding at Wilmington's AA+ rating the debt service will be roughly $80 million over 30 years. A year that is 2.7 million in debt service. A minor league team plays at most 140 games a year. Roughly half of them are home games. So 70 games a year. If we filled all 6000 seats, every game, all season, each seat would have to generate a little under $8 in revenue per seat to meet the debt service alone. What is the cost of an average minor league ticket? $8.
It just makes no financial sense for this city and we don't the fan base to sell out a stadium every game. The Mudcats are the most popular minor league in the region, They draw an average of 3400 per game.