THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, January 29, 1996 TAG: 9601290009
SECTION: BUSINESS WEEKLY PAGE: 04 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SOURCE: Ted Evanoff
LENGTH: Medium: 87 lines
You might think an old Navy town like Tidewater would rather go fishing than spend its hard-earned cash sitting with the rich folks at a pro basketball game.
Well, never let it be said that a bass-fishing jet engine mechanic can't enjoy a good pro game now and then.
Hampton Roads surely trails places like Boston and Chicago in personal wealth. But cities no longer must be sophisticated metropolises to land major league teams.
Nashville never could lure football's Oilers from Houston if sophistication was the key. Nor would Orlando be home to the Magic of the National Basketball Association.
The whole idea of parking the bass boat in favor of the NBA came up recently after the mayors of Virginia Beach and Norfolk spurned the Canadian Football League.
When a hopscotching CFL franchise in Louisiana, the Pirates, asked for public cash to ready an old stadium in Norfolk, Mayor Paul Fraim suggested Hampton Roads instead build an arena and pursue a first tier sports franchise that could give the region major league status.
Within days, Del. Jerrauld C. Jones, D-Norfolk, filed a bill to form a sports authority to construct an arena using sales tax revenue.
Hampton Roads suddenly bubbled - big league basketball or hockey would be fun, and just might unite all 1.6 million folks from Williamsburg to the Outer Banks.
But one question still hangs in the air.
Popcorn, drinks, candy, tickets - a family of four easily can spend $50 on a night at the movies in Tidewater. Could the same family afford $100 to $200 for a night of professional sports?
That's a big league issue for Hampton Roads before it commits $100 million-plus to a 24,000-seat arena.
With about 130,000 armed forces members on hand, Tidewater considers itself working class, less prosperous than Sun Belt stars like Nashville or Orlando.
Well, that may be, especially with wages stagnant and federal jobs disappearing. But Hampton Roads stacks up well to its peers in almost every measure of affluence. On paper, this city looks big league, especially because it is an old Navy town.
Stationed in Hampton Roads are about 96,000 Navy personnel, including a goodly number of admirals, captains and commanders whose tastes match executives of big corporations.
And there are tens of thousands of sailors, the vast bulk of them trained technicians stationed in Tidewater in an era when the Navy rank and file, for perhaps the first time since World War II, has an inordinately high number of enlistees from middle-class America.
With an annual Navy payroll that averages about $27,000 per person, Tidewater is no poor old military outpost, not by any means.
If Pentagon South is so rich, why worry about affording a ticket to a ball game? It has to do with how Tidewater makes its money.
Tidewater appears middle class and well off. In fact, the income reported by everyone in Tidewater in '93 totaled $27.9 billion, compared to $25.6 billion in Orlando and $22.5 billion in Nashville, says the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.
While cash streams through Tidewater, there aren't a lot of families who are really well off. Only about 14,000 of the 488,000 households in the region earn more than $100,000 a year. One reason for the paucity of affluence is the scarcity of entrepreneurs.
There aren't a lot self-employed folks in Tidewater compared to Sun Belt boom towns. Of every $100 in income in Hampton Roads, the self-employed earn $4. Run the numbers in Orlando and you'll find entrepreneurs account for $8; in Nashville, $10. No, you don't have to be self-employed to be affluent, but it helps.
Tidewater is a town of workers. People tend to be employees. They're engineers or administrators, technicians or teachers, clerks or shipwrights. When it's time to sell NBA tickets, they'll all be in line.
Can they afford NBA seats? Sure. About 96,500 households in Tidewater earn $50,000 to $99,000 a year, though there aren't enough prosperous folks to consistently fill a 24,000-seat arena.
A new arena's success will depend on the 189,000 households in the middle earning $25,000 to $49,000 a year.
Yes, many of these are families strapped by the stagnant wage base. But Tidewater is a Navy town, and while sailors aren't rich, they have cash. Buying on base stretches income.
As long as the Navy keeps 96,000 people on station, Tidewater can afford a major league sport. by CNB