What if a company and/or businessman with a proven track record of failed business plans for arenas all over the country approached you and said: "Let us help you come up with a plan for an arena that we can make profitable for you...?"
OSG Sports found just such an arrangement/deal in place in of all places--Glendale, Arizona- where as many of you know, the city is in dire straits trying to cover the cost of an arena for a hockey team that can't afford to be there... and has spent, what some will easily call, good money after bad...
With the current referendum ideas on the tale in Glendale, Arizona, OSG Sports decided to look at the depth of the city’s proposed arena deal with Greg Jamison and see if the decisions that need to be figured out by early July could be the next step in a dangerous process with a potential partner down the line... Global Entertainment...
The plan that Global Entertainment lays out for prospective cities is fairly brilliant in its vertical integration. The company, based in Glendale itself, claims it can handle the burgeoning market for mid-sized arenas and all aspects of operation with their subsidiaries:
The Central Hockey League provides an anchor tenant
International Coliseums will build the place
Global Entertainment Marketing Systems will market the arena to clients
GetTix.Net is their version of Ticketmaster
Global Properties and Encore Facility Management run the place and
GEC Food Service will give ticketholders something to eat while they’re there…
As a business-sized taxpayer for the city, the two issues that are in the process of being settled by an economically-strapped city affect them twice- and in a third manner that they are in the process of creating with their friends.
Other business leaders in the city are in the process of gathering signatures to suspend at temporary .07-percent sales tax hike. Their deadline is July 5th. Business leaders maintain that it would add more unnecessary dollars that they are responsible for in their bottom line as the city is trying to find a way to pay Greg Jamison US$324-million over the next 20 years to run Jobing.com arena.
US$90-million of that would be paid to Jamison in the first four years of the proposed deal as the city of Glendale is trying to juggle city deficits, job cuts, and services being eliminated for taxpayers.
Civic leaders are looking at the deal as misplaced priorities and the Glendale City Council is looking at it as trying to keep the idea of an “arena as an oasis” above water.
But one of the parties giving advice to the City of Glendale in all of this political machination is TL Hocking and Associates. Hocking gave Glendale advice in the appraisal process as the city wondered aloud what the financial shortfalls would be without an anchor tenant in the Phoenix Coyotes NHL franchise. Hocking is also a co-defendant in a lawsuit with Global and its subsidiaries just up the road in the Prescott Valley, yet Glendale took their advice (at present) as economic gospel.
And continues to... until further notice...…
This activity lends itself to the thought that Hocking, and possibly Global, are looking to step their game up to the big leagues in the shadow of an activity that is still legally questionable. If Glendale’s voters come forward to revoke the city’s ideas to raise revenue and keep the city and its arena afloat in the coming weeks, then Global and its partners could be in the position to step in as a savior- with all its baggage and poor history of arena management.
Global Entertainment and their arena issues are nothing new as OSG Sports and others have investigated and disclosed in numerous venues.
OSG Sports has spent months trying to detail Global and Hocking's track record of failure over the past decade. This is the first of several reports on that. We'll take you to smaller and medium-sized markets all over the country where they are now saddled with millions of debt on arenas that were promised tenants and business that never actually were delivered. And Global was either asked to leave or left, and each city is still trying to figure out just how much damage has been done...
Allen, Texas is one of those cities. And after getting in bed with Global, they are heading towards a showdown.
That showdown is going to take place...in court.
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