| The crucial
period for the Cincinnati Stingers begins today. Whether a major league hockey team can
hope to flourish in baseball, football oriented Cincinnati should become known over the
next few months. The Bengals have graciously retired for the season earlier than hoped,
and the Kentucky Colonels have long since withdrawn. Tonight for the first time, the
Stingers have the only pro game in town. It is one of the largest markets in the country
with no wintertime competition. If the Stingers don;t succeed now, in terms of attendance
and income, then what ? They are optimistic. "I think we
can draw better than 10,000 (per game) the rest of this season, depending on how well we
play," coach Terry Slater enthuses. "I've preached this for a long time. If we
can do that, we'll be in real good shape." The Stingers still would not make any
money, he cautions, but at least they would not lose much. They would maintain their
financial footing until they can establish themselves in the Queen City. This they believe
will take at least two years. "We have to realistic," club president Brian
Heekin declares. "We're the new kid in town and we're going to take a back seat to
the other teams for awhile. If you look at the Bengals for instance, you'll see they
didn't even fill Nippert Stadium for the first couple years. Then they just took off. I
think we've got a better start than they did."
The Stingers are currently averaging about 7,300 a game, and part of
that is due to some discount promotions. They need to average over 9,000 a game at full
price just to break even. "But we're ahead of our own projections," Slater
points out. "Last year we figured we'd only average about 6,000 until the Bengals
finished. I thought that figure was low and it turns out it was. We figured we'd go 9 to
10 after the Bengals quit, and I think we can do better than that, too." Such a jump
in fan interest could erase the Stingers current losses.
An Associated Press story out of Toronto Wednesday speculated that
10 of the 14 World Hockey Association teams would lose a total of $7.25 million this
season. The story predicted the Cincinnati team would lose $400,000. The Stingers reject
this. "That's high." says Slater quite positively. "They must be basing
their estimates on our salaries vs attendance, but they don't understand our salaries.
They look at all these big contracts we've given to the Sobchuks and the Dudleys and the
Pelyks, but they don't realize how much of that is in deferred payments and other
benefits."
"Most people don't know this but we have the smallest payroll
in the league," the coach reveals. "Calgary used to have the only one smaller,
but they've picked up a couple people since then and now I think we're the smallest. We
can lose as much money as some of the other people with the big payrolls."
The Stingers only carry 18 players on their major league roster, at
least two less than the other WHA teams. In addition, they help pay the salaries of only
two of their minor league players in Hampton. "We have a unique agreement
there," Slater says. "Hampton pays the salaries. We only pay the people we call
up." Slater compares the Stingers' situation to Indianapolis, which has 38 players
under contract. "Their payroll must really be something," he says. "They're
losing money, but if we had the attendance they had, we wouldn't be. Now if we can go out
and get some of those great baseball and great football fans into our building and let
them see a game or two, I think we'll have them. I think we'll be able to get our
attendance up the rest of the year and get ourselves established here."
Should things not go as well as hoped, it is not certain how
substantial a loss the club could absorb without folding. Officials refuse even to
entertain the thought. But it is certain other WHA teams will not survive, so one has to
wonder. The Minnesota Fighting Saints could not make their payroll Wednesday, although
they are averaging over 9,000 a game, far better than they Stingers.
Tonight's opponent at Riverfront Coliseum is the Denver Spurs, the
league's other expansion team. The Spurs were able to borrow enough money from a Denver
bank to make their last payroll. They are not expected to survive the season. Saturday the
Stingers host San Diego, which the AP says will lose $1 million this year. The league
president is there discussing the situation now. Other teams are failing too, so one has
to wonder. But the good Canadian teams, Winnipeg and Quebec, and the perennially strong
American teams, Houston and New England, are doing quite well amid this ruckus. If the
Stingers will also make it, the New Yea will tell. |
