Chiefs Take Out New Lease On Life Arena’s Potential Gives Hockey Club High Hopes

Ten years ago it was a losing hockey club with a tough lease in a building that leaked.

Today, the Spokane Chiefs are probably worth twice the $800,000 that Bobby Brett and his brothers John, George and Ken and their minority partners paid for the franchise in April, 1990.

Although it’s not the only inflationary force at work on the franchise, Spokane Arena is a factor in the robust health of the Spokane Chiefs.

The Bretts, who have owned the the Spokane Indians baseball club since the summer of 1985, knew the lame financial history of the hockey club started with a one-sided lease with the city for use of the Spokane Coliseum.

“The prior owners of junior hockey here all went broke,” Brett said. “We bought the team with the understanding that we’d get a new lease, which allowed us to pay the bills. Then the public voted for a new building.”

The effect?

“Our potential is so much greater,” Brett said.

So much so that Bruce Hamilton, minority owner of the Western Hockey League Kelowna Rockets, says the Chiefs are the most valuable property in North American junior hockey.

It wasn’t always so.

“No matter what people think, we have been a marginally profitable organization,” Brett said. “Marginally profitable. We averaged 4,000 (fans) in the old building. Now we have a chance to have a very profitable organization.”

The city shares Brett’s enthusiasm.

“There’s the challenge of selling twice as many seats but the opportunity for rewards could be phenomenal for them,” Arena general manager Kevin Twohig said. “And by being phenomenal for them is a great deal for us, because they pay us based on how many tickets they sell. We’re doing everything we can to try and make them successful.”

The club’s lease with the Spokane Public Facilities District is described by both the club and the city as mutually beneficial.

“If we sell out a game our rent on that night will triple over what they were getting in the past,” Brett said.

The Chiefs pay per-game rental based on eight percent of gross ticket sales, after ticket tax.

The Chiefs took 17 percent of the sale of concessions at the Coliseum. They get slightly more than 18 percent of Arena concessions, plus 30 percent of parking revenue, Brett said.

The previous owner, Vic Fitzgerald of Penticton, British Columbia, paid a fixed game-night rental fee and shared in none of the concessions or parking.

“When we bought the team we overpaid,” Brett said.

Now he hesitates to place a value on the club, pointing out that the WHL’s Regina franchise recently sold for $1.7 million (Canadian).

That wouldn’t be enough to buy the Chiefs, Brett confirmed. The franchise is not for sale.

Season ticket sales here will probably reach 2,500, a club record. More than any other revenue source, ticket sales are the club’s bread and butter.

“We’re not going to be at a (season-ticket) level of Kamloops or Red Deer because hockey in Canada is the No. 1 sport, the No. 2 sport and the No. 3 sport. It’s their life. But 2,500 puts us on par with Seattle and Portland,” Brett said.

“Spokane is a good hockey town but there are other things going on here. We’re in the same season-ticket category as Portland and Seattle, without their big-market potential for someone to walk up and buy a ticket on game night.”

So with what Brett calls an inventory of new seats, the Chiefs’ “budgeting expense for marketing and promotion goes way up,” Brett said.

The club wants to maintain the Coliseum-type intimacy of the hockey crowd in a building that won’t always be crowded.

“We want to create the atmosphere that makes going to a sporting event exciting,” Brett said. “Not that you have to sell out every game but if you draw 3,000 there are 7,000 empty seats. When we put 3,500 in the barn (the Coliseum) on a Wednesday night, we were at 70-percent capacity. That gave you a pretty good feel in there.

“If we do 3,500 in the new arena you won’t get that same feel, so our challenge is to develop some new hockey fans.”

With a potentially exciting team - the Chiefs are loaded with returning players - projections are “realistic that we can average 6,000,” Brett said.

The arrival of the Arena could redefine the bottom line of the baseball Indians and the hockey Chiefs.

Historically, the profit margin in baseball here was greater than hockey, with only 5,200 seats in the Coliseum.

“With the new arena - if we start averaging 6,000 for hockey - it changes,” Brett said. “Saturday night in the Boone Street Barn was a tough ticket. Basically, those games were sold out. The best we could do was 5,200 at an average ticket price of $7.

“In the new building we’ll have 10,000 seats. Our potential for gross ticket revenue is doubled.”

More than doubled, actually. Tickets for a Chiefs game are $12, $10 and $8 - up from $9.50 and $7.50 a year ago in the Coliseum.

The price increase hasn’t curbed demand. The club sold 1,820 season tickets last year. At last count they were over 2,400 and still selling.

Where it tops out is anybody’s guess.

“A lot has to do with how the public takes to the new building,” Brett said. “I think it’s the best arena in a secondary market that I’ve seen in the U.S. It’s terrific.

“I just hope the public feels that way.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo