Worcester needs $50M to entice baseball team

Contributed Corporate sponsors play a role in enticing teams away from markets like Pawtucket.

PHOTOS/COURTESY (Top) Corporate sponsors play a role in enticing teams away from markets like Pawtucket. (Bottom) Worcester has had success with hockey at the DCU Center.

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By Sam Bonacci

In order to get a baseball team like the Pawtucket Red Sox to make Central Massachusetts its home base, Worcester would have to find at least $50 million to invest in a stadium development as well as encourage businesses to become major supporters of the effort.

While it appears increasingly likely the Pawtucket Red Sox will stay in Rhode Island or choose another New England market like Springfield, the AAA minor league baseball team's flirtation with Worcester led city officials to openly discuss what it would it take to land a team and where the stadium would be located.

“The reality of life is these parks probably are going to cost you on the cheap side $50 million and go up from there,” said Mike Freimuth, executive director of the Connecticut Capital Region Development Authority in Hartford, where the city is building a minor league baseball stadium.

Modern parks are more entertainment complexes where a baseball game happens to break out than a baseball field with surrounding amenities, Freimuth said, which can be a good for attracting additional economic activity but also gets costly.

The $50 million could come from a combination of city, state and private funding. Freimuth said Bridgeport, Conn. used a $20-million municipal bond and private funding to build its Ballpark at Harbor Yard in 1998 to host the Bridgeport Bluefish. Hartford, on the other hand, used $56 million in city funds to entice the AA minor league team New Britain Rock Cats to downtown Hartford.

Landing a similar minor league team for Worcester would take this type of start-from-scratch approach, said Michael Mudd, who was the president of the Worcester Sharks hockey team and became the Worcester State University director of athletics in April 2014.

“It's hard to get (AAA) baseball because there is no brick and mortar, and it's hard to get a building built … There's no guarantee if you build it they will come,” Mudd said. “A lot of things have to come together and a lot of people need to play nice in the sandbox. Can it happen? Absolutely. But it's going to take some time.”

The last AAA stadium to be built was the 10,200-seat BB&T Ballpark in Charlotte, N.C., which cost $54 million and opened in 2014.

A city with potential

Last year marked the final season for the Worcester Sharks who had played at the DCU Center since 2006, that team having come in the place of the Worcester Ice Cats. According to multiple reports, the DCU Center management is currently in talks to get a new team into the arena from the lower tier ECHL.

Worcester has had success among previous hockey teams and getting another team into that arena is an obvious fit for both the center, city and potential teams, Mudd said.

“It's got everything in place and a very good venue with good leaders in government and business … I think there is a good chance in the short term there will be a hockey team,” he said.

Worcester's baseball market is another story, especially when it comes to pulling in the Pawtucket Red Sox, Mudd said. Worcester already has a well-received baseball team in the Futures Collegiate Baseball League Worcester Bravehearts that plays at Foley Field at Holy Cross, and the city's baseball history is spotty, including a foreclosure on the Worcester Tornados team that previously played at the field and featured Jose Canseco in their last season.

Corporate sponsors

Teams coming into the city will be looking for a good lease deal, merchandising opportunities, and a wide array of potential corporate sponsors, Freimuth said. Tickets, while an important stream of revenue, are not the ultimate measure of either a team's success or the potential of a market.

“You have a good foundation of civic and business leaders that see the big picture of the value of a professional sports franchise to the city from an economic standpoint and quality of living,” Mudd said.

Ultimately for team owners, said Mudd, this is a business with a bottom line and that will be the decision making factor on where to locate.

“If the city of Springfield is giving them a sweetheart deal compared to the city of Worcester, they are probably going to take the sweetheart deal rather than go to the city of Worcester,” he said.

Among Worcester's biggest challenges, Mudd said, is a lack of a dedicated television market. While the Charter news station does a good job of covering sports, it's different than in a city with its own dedicated television stations.

Even if Worcester solves these issues, the pressing issue remains its desire to build a new stadium for a potential team. The city council already has expressed wariness to spending public money on a stadium, and those decisions can be difficult to sell to the electorate, particularly in tough budget times, Freimuth said.

Downtown location

Worcester has a potential location for a new stadium, with officials pointing to the former Wyman Gordon property in the Canal District that could serve as a 14-acre downtown-adjacent location for a sports complex.

A downtown location is what teams are looking for and is a good fit for a stadium and a city's larger economic development plans, said Freimuth.

The Bridgeport stadium was part of the city attempting to revitalize its downtown through public and private partnerships. Bringing people downtown for a sports game was part of the plan that ultimately included another sports stadium as well as housing and business development. It was located on a brownfield site, being used as an opportunity to clean up a derelict factory and improve the city, Freimuth said.

The similarities to Worcester's situation are obvious.

“In Bridgeport it was looked at as a loss leader and part of a larger redevelopment program,” Freimuth said. “It was looked at as an image issue where if you could get suburbanites to come in … it carried a value in marketing.”

Ultimately, these stadiums bring few permanent jobs, and city officials should be aiming to break even on the cost of the facility, Freimuth said.

The urban stadium is a growing trend, and other cities have had positive economic results from their presence. Since the Birmingham Barons moved to downtown Birmingham, Ala. in 2013 after being in a more suburban area for 14 years, redevelopment has been rampant around the new stadium, General Manager Jonathan Nelson said.

“The ripple effect of the ballpark downtown has really been something,” he said. “It's amazing the rapid growth that is going on around us.”

In 2014, there were roughly 10 construction projects around the stadium with just as many, if not more this year, Nelson said. These include a hotel, brewery and housing.

However, the potential benefits to the city are not the only part of the equation, the deal has to be profitable and attractive to the team owners, Mudd said.

Baseball competition

One of the greatest challenges for officials will be balancing the baseball team Worcester already has against another team with the Red Sox name. While this would not dissuade an AAA team from coming to the area, it would be an obvious competitor to the Bravehearts

The Bravehearts have hit a sweet spot in the market, said Bravehearts owner John Creedon, Jr. By keeping prices family-friendly and offering an affordable entertainment option, the team has seen expanded attendance as they prepare to enter their third season. Creedon declined to give specific revenue figures.

“Worcester loves the Bravehearts, and I think just generally people love their sports teams and people in Worcester love Worcester things,” he said. “Worcester deserves sports teams.”