Article on Dashs Stadiums

[Chisoxfn]

http://www.baseballamerica.com/blog/business/?p=208

If the Winston-Salem city council approves Billy Prim’s request for $15.7 million to complete construction on a 5,500-seat downtown ballpark, the overall price tag for project will rise to $40.1 million.

 

That would make it the most expensive Class A facility ever built. The current Class A leader is Great Lakes’ Dow Diamond, which opened in 2007 for $34 million.

 

The new price tag is significantly more than the typical for a Class A facility, which in our 2008 minor league preview we reported as running around $15-20 million.

 

The most recent high Class A facilities to be built were Charlotte’s Sports Park in 2009, a renovation/teardown of an existing facility that cost $27 million; and Stockton’s Banner Island Ballpark in 2005 that cost $22 million.

 

In 2008, Triple-A Lehigh Valley debuted 10,000-seat Coca-Cola Park for $49.4 million and Double-A Northwest Arkansas opened 7,500-seat Arvest Ballpark for $33 million.

 

Six teams opened new ballparks this season, with only three topping the $40 million mark (all Triple-A facilities):

 

Triple-A Columbus ($56 million), Triple-A Gwinnett (estimated $40 million, likely total $60 million), Triple-A Reno ($50 million), high Class A Charlotte ($27 million), low Class A Bowling Green ($28 million), low Class A Fort Wayne ($30.6 million).

 

It’s important to remember that Triple-A ballparks usually seat around 10,000 fans; Double-A facilities 6-7,000; Class A between 4-5,500.

Since I'm a tard, are they playing in the park already or are they still at Ernie Shore and slated to begin play in the new park next year? I thought the name change coincided with the new stadium but I might be wrong.

[Chisoxfn]

Nevermind, I found another article. Park is sitting half done.

 

Money had to be an issue.

 

Why else would the consolidation of high Class A Winston-Salem, in which Billy Prim was buying out co-owner and longtime business partner Andrew Filipowski, take so long despite repeated claims by team officials that the deal was nearly complete?

 

Then came news today, reported by the Winston-Salem Journal, that Prim is asking city officials for an additional $15.7 million to complete construction on the new ballpark—which was supposed to open in April but sits half finished, collecting mud puddles, in downtown Winston-Salem.

 

Prim says that a combination of the lack of private investors, the global credit crunch and the collapse of his partnership with Filipowski has caused the need to back to the city for more cash.

 

The City Council will vote on the proposal, perhaps as early as Monday night, the Journal reports. If the measure is voted down, and construction does not resume (which somehow seems like an unlikely scenario considering how far along the ballpark is), the city would be forced to bring Prim’s company to court to recoup the $12 million it already invested in the project.

 

"We try to focus on the positives," Prim told the Journal, "instead of on whose lawyer would win."

[Chisoxfn]

Apparently its a massive mess and the Dash are only averaging 456 fans a game. They also layed off a ton of employees who had been hired in anticipation of the new stadium.

 

The market has not responded well. The Dash, playing at their old home of Ernie Shore Field (which has since been renamed Wake Forest Baseball Park) have averaged just 456 fans a game. The team had geared all their promotions and ticket sales toward the new ballpark and were left scrambling once it became obvious it would not be ready for Opening Day.

 

I guess this is why they were going to stop doing radio broadcasts of all road games.

[JPN366]

Apparently its a massive mess and the Dash are only averaging 456 fans a game. They also layed off a ton of employees who had been hired in anticipation of the new stadium.

 

 

 

I guess this is why they were going to stop doing radio broadcasts of all road games.

 

They're still doing road games, it's the home games that are not being streamed.

[Chisoxfn]

Interesting. You'd figure home games would be cheap to do.

[BearSox]

Speaking of new stadiums, is Charlotte gonna get a new stadium or has that been put on hold?

 

I'd love Charlotte get a new stadium. I don't like the idea of our top prospects playing in a bandbox that could possibly lead to bat habits (in other words, they get home run happy playing there).

 

I'm not saying it even has to be a pitchers park, just less of a hitters park it is now.

[NorthSideSox72]

Interesting. You'd figure home games would be cheap to do.

Same motivation as black-outs. You try to draw more home crowds by not broadcasting the home games.

 

[ThunderBolt]

Interesting. You'd figure home games would be cheap to do.

It’s possible that they just don’t have the proper budget for equipment at home. I worked for college algae team and it really depended on where you broadcasted. At home games, we had to either do it through a phone, or through a dial-up computer program, while at away games they actually had fairly sophisticated equipment.