THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, April 18, 1996 TAG: 9604180468
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C5 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Tom Robinson
LENGTH: Medium: 85 lines
If and when Blake Cullen sells his Hampton Roads Admirals hockey team, there will be but two major players in this minor league sports town: Ken Young and Mark Garcea.
The irony of this bleeds from the Admirals' drama, a compelling one that's been played out in private rooms on and off since last year.
Young, president of the Norfolk Tides, and Garcea, an investor in the Tides and co-owner of the Hampton Roads Mariners soccer team, are the only serious bidders for Cullen's franchise.
Thus we have a tangle between:
A one-time outsider in Young, an avid sports fan and veteran food-service operator from Tampa, Fla., who was quickly adopted by South Hampton Roads; and a self-made millionaire from Virginia Beach in Garcea, who remained largely oblivious to sports and anonymous to the general public while building a successful electronics company.
Two men who, at Young's behest, became business partners in the Tides four years ago and who continue to reap financial benefits from the deal, yet have a personal relationship that has soured.
Men who, as two of six Tides board members, help decide the club's direction, yet compete for fans' sports dollars in the spring and summer with baseball and soccer.
Now they are competing for the fall and winter. And for a two-thirds share of the local pro sports market that will make one a smaller-town version of Chicago's Jerry Reinsdorf, Phoenix's Jerry Colangelo or Atlanta's Ted Turner.
Separately, both discussed at length buying the Admirals last summer before Cullen decided he wasn't ready to part with the team he founded for $25,000 seven years ago. This time, it appears as though Cullen will go through with it, and get perhaps as much as $3 million for his baby.
Whether Garcea and partner Page Johnson, the other co-owner of the Mariners, or Young get the nod, the new operators of the Admirals will have to pump fresh air into a franchise that for various reasons has gone stagnant.
Asking the same of the Young-Garcea relationship would be a bit much.
When Young came to town in 1992, rustling up well-heeled investors for the $7 million purchase of the Tides, Garcea, hoping to broaden his local stature through sports, was one of the first in the pool.
With Johnson, then an accountant, as an intermediary, Garcea joined Young's effort for more than $500,000.
When the deal was done, Young became the Tides' president, and remains so. Garcea was installed as a vice president, and that first season at Harbor Park in '93 he was a steady presence at games.
But Garcea and Young clashed over, among other things, Young's dominant media profile with the team. Garcea sightings at the ballpark became fewer and fewer, especially after he took over the Mariners two years ago.
Eventually, Garcea's vice president's title was removed, and his dealings with Young have shrunk mostly to business meetings a few times a year.
Now, a further irony is that, if Young's bid to buy the Admirals succeeds, he will likely turn to Garcea in one way or another for money; either by asking for new capital or for his vote, as a board member of the partnership that owns the Tides, to approve putting Tides money into the purchase.
What seems clear is that, by their repeated wooings of Cullen, an Admirals acquisition holds huge significance to Garcea and Young.
What only the players know for sure, though, is how much of the quest is just business, and how much is personal. ILLUSTRATION: MARK GARCEA: The self-made millionaire from Virginia Beach is a
co-owner of the Hampton Roads Mariners soccer team and a board
member - and former vice president - of the Norfolk Tides.
KEN YOUNG: The food-service operator from Tampa, Fla., is president
of the Norfolk Tides. He and Garcia have clashed over his dominant
media profile with the ballclub.
by CNB