THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, January 1, 1997 TAG: 9701010245
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ED MILLER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: HARTFORD, CONN. LENGTH: 88 lines
John and Mary Young of suburban South Windsor, Conn., come into downtown Hartford about 40 times a year to watch the Hartford Whalers. They usually spend money downtown, on dinner or in one of the shops at the mall attached to the Hartford Civic Center.
The Youngs don't mind the 15-minute trip downtown. But ask them if they'd come downtown to eat or shop if the Whalers weren't around, and the question is a no-brainer.
``We wouldn't,'' said Mary Young, a nurse at a nearby hospital. ``There are too many malls around us.''
Economists and pro sports boosters often argue over the economic benefits of major league sports franchises. But in downtown Hartford, the benefits are palpable. You could see them, on a recent Saturday night, in the jostling crowds that browsed mall shops before games; in the hour-long line for a table at a downtown steakhouse; in the traffic on Trumbull Street outside the Civic Center. You could even hear them, in the thwack of sticks against pucks at a hockey-style batting cage set up in the mall.
``Downtown is dead if there's nothing going on at the Civic Center,'' said Tom Abate, who was serving pregame beers to hockey fans at a nearby sports bar. He said business picks up ``80 to 90 percent'' when the Whalers are at home.
With George Shinn attempting to bring a National Hockey League team to Hampton Roads - a team that would play in a downtown Norfolk arena - there are hopes that hockey could help pump life into downtown. If there's a lesson to be learned from Hartford, a city that has no other major league team but the Whalers, it's that while a downtown arena can help prop up downtown, it won't do much else for the region, economically speaking.
Whalers fans spend about $500,000 per game downtown, according to the Greater Hartford Sports Commission. Most of the money is spent at restaurants and bars. With 41 home games per year, plus the playoffs, the yearly take is more than $20 million.
``Businesses flourish when the team is playing as well as it is now,'' said Rick Francis, director of marketing for the Whalers.
Much of the money - perhaps most of it - comes from suburbanites who might not venture into Hartford for entertainment otherwise. That pattern jibes with the findings of economists like Robert A. Baade of Lake Forest College, outside Chicago. Baade, who has studied the economic impact of sports franchises, maintains that they merely shift economic activity, rather than create it. Leisure dollars spent on sports would be spent on other things if sports weren't available. If suburbanites weren't going to hockey games, they'd probably be going to movies.
Probably not downtown, however. Which is the main reason downtown boosters would like to keep the Whalers, who are threatening to move if taxpayers don't build them a new arena.
Hartford is a poor city - one of the nation's poorest. The Whalers are one of the beams holding up a sagging downtown. Remove them, and the structure is weakened.
Tony Caruso, director of the Downtown Council, a business group, said the council has commissioned its own economic impact study to tally the amount of spin-off dollars generated by the Whalers.
``We're trying to use that, frankly, as a strong justification to encourage powers that be here to look upon the Whalers as valuable,'' Caruso said. ``The bottom line, clearly, is we generate more of those kinds of revenues and spin-off dollars now than if the Whalers were not in town.''
Hartford Mayor Mike Peters said about 20 businesses downtown depend on the Whalers.
``Although those are smaller businesses, that's still about 500 jobs,'' he said.
For many Hartford residents, jobs are hard to come by. The city's unemployment rate is 9.5 percent, compared to 5.2 percent for the region, and 4.8 percent for the state.
A Whaler pullout would not mean total inactivity at the Civic Center, which also hosts some home games for a women's professional basketball team, a Continental Basketball Association team and the University of Connecticut. There are ice shows and concerts, too.
But even some who don't care for hockey conceded that the Whalers are vital to downtown.
Marilyn Rosetti, president of the community organization HART (Hartford Areas Rally Together) has been to only one Whalers game in her life. Someone gave her a ticket.
``It's an elitist activity,'' she said. ``The tickets are expensive.''
The NHL has the highest average ticket price of all major league sports - $38. Still, Rosetti said she'd hate to see the Whalers leave.
``We have a city that's dying as far as business,'' Rosetti said. ``There's already no shopping in downtown because of the malls. If the hockey team goes, (downtown) goes.''
KEYWORDS: HOCKEY HARTFORD ARENA
CONNECTICUT