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May 31, 2006
Arena? What arena?
Five years after Orlando Magic owner Rich DeVos began stumping for a new basketball arena, he's back for another try. The new tack: Pretend it's not a basketball arena. "It's an events center. Repeat after me: events center," Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer told the Orlando Sentinel. "Even the current arena is more of an events center than a basketball arena. The Magic only use the building about 25 percent of the time."
While DeVos is the one pushing for a new publicly funded facility - or "community venue," as Mayor Dyer prefers to call it - city officials say a new, uh, thingy would make it easier to bring in concert performers as well. Which is an urgent matter, given that the number of concerts at the TD Waterhouse Centre (the former Orlando Arena) has dropped this year from ... okay, according to the Sentinel, it's actually gone up. But really, it's an urgent matter, we swear. And it has nothing to do with the Magic, or DeVos, or that sport with the bumpy orange ball that shall not be named.
The Sentinel also dug up a local advertising professor, Jon Morris of the University of Florida, who compared the "events center" slogan to famed re-brandings of products like Marlboro cigarettes and 7-Up: "It's a repositioning of an old proposition. Recasting things can improve their image in the minds of consumers." Don't I know it.
Since a new arena is not going to get built in Orlando why don't Rich DeVos move the Orlando Magic to Tampa Bay?
Posted by Daniel on May 31, 2006 06:15 PM
Geee we can't start saying Events centre before you know it the likes of britany spears, aerosmith and kiss will want arena's built for them exclusively to have total revenues of concessions, parking and corporate suites.Before you know it stadium will look like malls if 80's teen star tiffany get her way. Gandi once said a arena for each sports franchise in a city only makes the whole world go blind. Er was that an eye for an eye.
Posted by paul taylor on June 1, 2006 12:41 PM
A poll conducted by CSU-Sacramento asked the question,
"Do you think the Kings need a new arena?"
27% of the general population said "yes;" 39% of Kings fans said "yes."
So folks at the various Kings fans websites criticized the question. They thought the question, "Do you think the Kings need a new arena?" was the wrong question to ask.
So now I'm thinking, Hmmm, maybe they should have asked, "Does Sacramento need a new Events Center?", but I am very hard pressed to see how they come up with a number over 27% on that, too.
Only 1% of respondents think a new arena should be funded entirely publicly. Maybe that number goes to 84% if the question is reworded, "If a new events center were built, how, do you think, it should be paid for?"...
Here's the entire poll:
http://www.csus.edu/news/finalkingsreport4.pdf
Posted by MikeM on June 1, 2006 02:18 PM