Superdome / Benson Revenue

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sader24 wrote:I thought we were leaving the Dome b/c we cant tailgate on elevated parking structures?
We're leaving the dome because, financially, it works against us. All parking and concessions go to Mr. B.


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BC Wave wrote:
sader24 wrote:I thought we were leaving the Dome b/c we cant tailgate on elevated parking structures?
We're leaving the dome because, financially, it works against us. All parking and concessions go to Mr. B.

That's a falsehood put out by the other site you participate on. Tom Benson does not own the Suoperdome. Tulane can make money just like all the other events at the dome. The high schools started a new opening set of games in the dome last year and they can make money on it just like the HS championdships can. Both college bowl games make money. The Final Four makes money. The BCS championship game makes money. The Bayou Classic makes money. The Essence Fest makes money. Motorcross makes money. Do you still want to stick to that lie? If you do then produce the contract that says Tulane must pay rent but can't derive a penny of revenue. That lie will not be tolerated on this site.
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Interesting . So you are saying that Tulane gets revenue from stadium and/or concessions sales? I have always taken it as a fact that, though Tulane's rent is low because it's on a sliding scale, the other revenue is zero. I will try to find a more documented answer. If you have anything that supports your statement, please let me know. Thanks.
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Wouldnt alot of the new revenue be counteracted by Maintenance costs, security costs, Entergy costs, costs of providing shuttles from the surrounding area for fans, etc. etc.? What little revenue we gain from a small amount of parking spaces will be eaten up by providing security details at pretty much all of these lots, paying the schools a certain % of said revenue for the right to use the parking lots, paying at least 2 employees to man each parking lot, and paying for what appears to me to be at least a dozen shuttle buses for busing people from the lots to the game, paying for the drivers of said shuttle buses to be on the clock from 10am-7pm for a 2:30 kickoff, etc, paying for gas.
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BC Wave wrote:Interesting . So you are saying that Tulane gets revenue from stadium and/or concessions sales? I have always taken it as a fact that, though Tulane's rent is low because it's on a sliding scale, the other revenue is zero. I will try to find a more documented answer. If you have anything that supports your statement, please let me know. Thanks.
BC- did you not read my post. All those other events make money but you want to argue that Tulane can't. It's non sensical. It's a lie that those w/an agenda for an OCS have long put out there. So if you or they say it's true then produce the proof. There is no contract for any tenant of a sporting facility like that anywhere.

This shows how powerful that other site is in misleading intelligent people like BC. I mean just stop and think for a second. To believer them is to believe all those other events can only make money on ticket sales. Not happening.
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I read it. I believe Tulane's contract goes back to the early days of the dome and from what accounts I've read make it a hard to lose but harder to make much proposition. I'm sure each event has their own unique contract. And although I haven't found any evidence yet that is decisive about Tulane's supposed no revenue from concessions, I did find two links in google where the synopsis stated that. One was to some professional journal that I did not see when I scanned over the article. The other was from 2010 in a TP article that espoused playing at TG. Unfortunately the link to Nola was dead because it was "too old"

I'll keep looking.
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BC is correct. Tulane is a tentant. To keep the Saints here the state (owner of the Dome) gave Benson the right to collect just about on everything that generates revenue there except ticket sales. That would include, concession, suites and parking, etc. Tulane gets the free use of a few suites during the Tulane games, thats about it. Tulane collects $0 in parking and $0 in concessions. Tulane had to pay Benson somwewhere between $25-$50K to use Champion Square for homecoming.
And must pay gameday expenses of the needed personnel.
http://www.bestofneworleans.com/gambit/ ... id=1243609
Currently, under the terms of a deal cut by former Gov. Mike Foster, the team has control of all Superdome concessions (including parking and luxury suites). It also receives annual state subsidies of more than $15 million. The subsidies will grow to more than $23 million a year in 2008. Benson wants those payments to grow, and he wants taxpayers to foot the bill for a renovated Superdome -- which, in turn, will allow him to make more money from concessions and suites.
http://blog.nola.com/saintsbeat/2009/04 ... _woul.html

Benson got $60MM from Mercedes Benz for naming rights.....
http://www.nola.com/saints/index.ssf/20 ... super.html
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tpstulane wrote:BC is correct. Tulane is a tentant. To keep the Saints here the state (owner of the Dome) gave Benson the right to collect just about on everything that generates revenue there except ticket sales. That would include, concession, suites and parking, etc. Tulane gets the free use of a few suites during the Tulane games, thats about it. Tulane collects $0 in parking and $0 in concessions. Tulane had to pay Benson somwewhere between $25-$50K to use Champion Square for homecoming.
And must pay gameday expenses of the needed personnel.
http://www.bestofneworleans.com/gambit/ ... id=1243609
Currently, under the terms of a deal cut by former Gov. Mike Foster, the team has control of all Superdome concessions (including parking and luxury suites). It also receives annual state subsidies of more than $15 million. The subsidies will grow to more than $23 million a year in 2008. Benson wants those payments to grow, and he wants taxpayers to foot the bill for a renovated Superdome -- which, in turn, will allow him to make more money from concessions and suites.
http://blog.nola.com/saintsbeat/2009/04 ... _woul.html

Benson got $60MM from Mercedes Benz for naming rights.....
http://www.nola.com/saints/index.ssf/20 ... super.html
That is for Saints games. It is not for Tulane games. Benson gets all revenue for Saints games only. Again, think it thru. If you want to take that snippet and say it applies to all events at the Dome then those events would not be held there.
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All events RWR:
http://www.neworleanssaints.com/tickets ... uites.html
Under the Annual Lease Option, suites may be available in three, five and seven-year lease terms. There are many benefits to leasing a suite year-round. Not only do you get all of the exciting action of Saints games, you also get access to all events in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome! That includes any other scheduled events such as Sugar Bowl, Tulane football, Bayou Classic, New Orleans Bowl, LHSAA football championship games as well as Essence Festival and other concerts. (Due to the Mercedes-Benz Superdome's concert configuration, certain suites are out of view for concerts.) Tickets and catering are not included in the annual lease price. Catering is purchased by you directly from Centerplate Catering, the catering operator of the Superdome's Suite Level. They offer a variety of culinary favorites, all provided with quality products and service.
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tpstulane wrote:All events RWR:
http://www.neworleanssaints.com/tickets ... uites.html
Under the Annual Lease Option, suites may be available in three, five and seven-year lease terms. There are many benefits to leasing a suite year-round. Not only do you get all of the exciting action of Saints games, you also get access to all events in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome! That includes any other scheduled events such as Sugar Bowl, Tulane football, Bayou Classic, New Orleans Bowl, LHSAA football championship games as well as Essence Festival and other concerts. (Due to the Mercedes-Benz Superdome's concert configuration, certain suites are out of view for concerts.) Tickets and catering are not included in the annual lease price. Catering is purchased by you directly from Centerplate Catering, the catering operator of the Superdome's Suite Level. They offer a variety of culinary favorites, all provided with quality products and service.
Again, the Saints get the benefit on Saints game days.
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tpstulane
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RWR wrote:
tpstulane wrote:All events RWR:
http://www.neworleanssaints.com/tickets ... uites.html
Under the Annual Lease Option, suites may be available in three, five and seven-year lease terms. There are many benefits to leasing a suite year-round. Not only do you get all of the exciting action of Saints games, you also get access to all events in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome! That includes any other scheduled events such as Sugar Bowl, Tulane football, Bayou Classic, New Orleans Bowl, LHSAA football championship games as well as Essence Festival and other concerts. (Due to the Mercedes-Benz Superdome's concert configuration, certain suites are out of view for concerts.) Tickets and catering are not included in the annual lease price. Catering is purchased by you directly from Centerplate Catering, the catering operator of the Superdome's Suite Level. They offer a variety of culinary favorites, all provided with quality products and service.
Again, the Saints get the benefit on Saints game days.
Plus all other events.
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The saints get all the revenue from all sources on saints game days. They have an interest in promoting the other events to entice people to buy the lease.

Let me ask you tps do you really believe that all the other events in the dome can only make money off of ticket sales?
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tpstulane
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RWR wrote:The saints get all the revenue from all sources on saints game days. They have an interest in promoting the other events to entice people to buy the lease.

Let me ask you tps do you really believe that all the other events in the dome can only make money off of ticket sales?
I give up RWR. I've wasted enough time on this.
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I'm fairly certain Benson gets the parking and concession money from Tulane games. I think something that supports this fact is Benson making a donation towards the stadium, he likely wants Tulane out of there those 6 or 7 Saturdays per year so he can book larger events such as 2 Big Time college football games with Out Of state opponents and God knows what else. Maybe I'm wrong about that, but I'm almost positive TPS is correct about the lease. It may be possible Benson sublets to those other events when the city bids on them and lets those events receive a % of parking and concessions or maybe even the whole thing, but I'm almost positive it is solely up to him to make those decisions and as far as Tulane is concerned he receives the money. Irregardless, we drew 900 people to a game this year which is about 2-400 vehicles so if we are building a stadium to collect that whopping $2-4,000 without realizing nobody is coming to watch bad football against bad teams we are stupid. The product needs to be fixed first. If we were winning and drawing large crowds we may actually have some leverage with Benson but we arent.
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sader you get that from the other site. The saints do have an unusual agreement in that they get all revenue from the dome on SAINTS GAME DAYS. Usually there is a split.
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RWR you are wrong on this one. Has nothing to do with the BMT board. Benson is donating money to get Tulane out. He can't make any money on concessions and parking because of the sparse crowds. If you go to the games you'll know that he has shut down all but a few concession stands during game days. I've Have complained to Tulane officials and have been told that they have no control over that. The only revenue Tulane gets inside the dome is from the little merchandise stand that sells Tulane stuff and Benson gets a cut off of that. Fans complain about the lack of stands all the time. Only part of the the parking garage is even opened for Tulane games. Tulane isn't worried about parking because the dome holds 5k vehicles and during Tulane games there may be only a few hundred spots sold. Tulane has a sweetheart deal on the rent. Basically we play at the dome free. As sader said Benson wants us out. Can you image if he just had one Texas vs Alabama kickoff game to open the season he would draw 75k. Tulane doesn't draw that in 6-7 games. Like it or not it's only fair to report the facts when discussing this stuff.
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If all of that is true then one wonders why on earth that the Superdome might be available at all for the "big games" after Tulane makes the move over to the new stadium.
Tulane sports: small football stadium, very small basketball arena, w̶i̶n̶n̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶g̶r̶a̶m̶s̶, h̶o̶n̶e̶s̶t̶y̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶a̶c̶c̶o̶u̶n̶t̶a̶b̶i̶l̶i̶t̶y̶ , but, hey, now there's tailgating.
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I agree w/RWR on this. That blurb was from an article that was clearly about the Saints and the revenue they get on their game days. I'm a Saints season ticket holder too and the package always offers parking. It doesn't say it will be yours for all other events. Benson would have a lot more incentive for Tulane football to be a tenant he knows he can get 6-7 games out of. He would want them to be succesful if he got all revenue from all events. There is no guarantee that if Tulane leaves that even so much as one game by other teams will be played there. If Tulane is successful they can draw at least one opponent a year that will sell out and they can line up at least one if not 2 more that will draw 50,000 or more. The rest of the games would draw 35-40,000.
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Ok you guys have got me so aggravated that I went into my dad's files and found some info on a story he did many years ago about the lease agreement. I tried to scan the summary exhibit which specifies the Revenue Split for the lease at the bottom of my post.

But here's exactly what it says we get:
Tulane/Tenant
Revenue/Split
Rent/Year
First year of lease (1975) $10,000 5%
increase for the remaining 4 years; See
Game Payment details below
Also pays percentage of Tulanes Share of the
Gate that exceeds the Floor Amount.
See Page 8 of Contract for further detail.


Ticket Sales
Tulane retains control of ticket sales

Concessions
District retains all revenue

Parking
District retains all revenue

Merchandise
Tulane retains revenue from program sales

Advertising
District retains all revenue from scoreboard
and display advertising; Tulane retains
revenue derived from all radio and tevelivsion
rights for broadcasting


Operating Expenses
District to provide all materials, supplies, and
labor necessary to present a football game at
the Superdome, etc.


Notes
Game payment due in year of extended term
= "Game Payment for the fith year of the
primary term increase or decreased by the
percentage which is numberically equivalent
to the difference between the index number in
the colum under "All Commodities" in the
index entitled "Wholesale Price Index"
published monthly byu the Bureau of Labor
Statistics of the US Dept. of Labor...";
Floor Amount = # of games x $50,000. The
same extention calcuation applies for the
Floor Amount if extended term


http://imageshack.us/f/337/tulanelease3.jpg/
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Thanks tps. That lease proves that no revenue went to the Saints. The new lease won't either. That lease also is a sweetheart deal. I think most agree that currently that would be a good deal b/c the few thousand we draw would in no way support an OCS and all the attendant bills. Most would also agree that once we are successful and drawing well that we can better negotiate w/the Dome.

As for the Benson issue the Hornets just got a a new lease that entitles them to all game day revenue. That was before the NBA announced the new owner. It doesn't make them the owners of the arena. The media would jump all over that if the teams in effect had become the owners. Those stadiums need to make money to pay their bills. So the Saints and Hornets leases are for their game day revenue only.
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RWR wrote:Thanks tps. However, that is quite old and Tulane has since entered into a new lease. That lease also proves that no revenue went to the Saints. The new lease won't either. That lease also is a sweetheart deal. I think most agree that currently that would be a good deal b/c the few thousand we draw would in no way support an OCS and all the attendant bills. Most would also agree that once we are successful and drawing well that we can better negotiate w/the Dome.

As for the Benson issue the Hornets just got a a new lease that entitles them to all game day revenue. That was before the NBA announced the new owner. It doesn't make them the owners of the arena. The media would jump all over that if the teams in effect had become the owners. Those stadiums need to make money to pay their bills. So the Saints and Hornets leases are for their game day revenue only.
RWR, the lease is automatically renewed each year. The point is Tulane gets no revenue. Benson has a separate lease agreement with the District. The District turns over all revenue to him. This is Tulane (a private university not the Hornets) It's a terrible lease for the District when we have 5K-10K in there. They make nothing, in turn Benson makes nothing. Do yourself a favor and call or email either Doug Thornton or Bill Curl. (Bill is a personal friend of mine that worked for both Tulane and then later for SMG at the Dome I could have him call you and explain the lease deal) Trust me man, we get no revenue split other than program and t-shirts and what I already mentioned. Tulane has no leverage to get a better lease deal. I guess they could threaten to play at Tad Gormerly, other than to threaten to build its own stadium.... Benson holds all the cards as owner of the Saints. I love the dome. If Tulane drew 45K like we use to Benson would be happy to have us because he would get a bigger cut from the District. But then it would cost us money because there's no upside incentive for Tulane other than ticket rev's. Now you see why SC doesn't really care. The smaller the crowd, the less Tulane pays in rent. Benson doesn't own the dome, he has a better deal than the owner. He just made $60MM in naming rights. His landlord (the State) turns over all the revenue made at the dome to him because of his lease agreement and the leverage he has. If we were drawing 45K we'd have some leverage but unfortunately that's not the case.
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tpstulane wrote:
RWR wrote:Thanks tps. However, that is quite old and Tulane has since entered into a new lease. That lease also proves that no revenue went to the Saints. The new lease won't either. That lease also is a sweetheart deal. I think most agree that currently that would be a good deal b/c the few thousand we draw would in no way support an OCS and all the attendant bills. Most would also agree that once we are successful and drawing well that we can better negotiate w/the Dome.

As for the Benson issue the Hornets just got a a new lease that entitles them to all game day revenue. That was before the NBA announced the new owner. It doesn't make them the owners of the arena. The media would jump all over that if the teams in effect had become the owners. Those stadiums need to make money to pay their bills. So the Saints and Hornets leases are for their game day revenue only.
RWR, the lease is automatically renewed each year. The point is Tulane gets no revenue. Benson has a separate lease agreement with the District. The District turns over all revenue to him. This is Tulane (a private university not the Hornets) It's a terrible lease for the District when we have 5K-10K in there. They make nothing, in turn Benson makes nothing. Do yourself a favor and call or email either Doug Thornton or Bill Curl. Trust me man, we get no revenue split other than program and t-shirts and what I already mentioned. Tulane has no leverage to get a better lease deal. I guess they could threaten to play at Tad Gormerly, other than to threaten to build its own stadium.... Benson holds all the cards as owner of the Saints. I love the dome. If Tulane drew 45K like we use to Benson would be happy to have us because he would get a bigger cut from the District. But then it would cost us money because there's no upside incentive for Tulane other than ticket rev's. Now you see why SC doesn't really care. The smaller the crowd, the less Tulane pays in rent. Benson doesn't own the dome, he has a better deal than the owner. He just made $60MM in naming rights. His landlord (the State) turns over all the revenue made at the dome to him because of his lease agreement and the leverage he has. If we were drawing 45K we'd have some leverage but unfortunately that's not the case.
tps no where in there or anywhere else does it say the District turns over all revenue to Benson. It also doesn't read that it renews yearly. There was chatter in the last couple of years that the original lease expired and we entered a new one. As for no revenue from parking and concessions Tulane would need at least a 50,000 seat stadium w/ample parking provided to make it worthwhile to build an OCS. A small stadium dooms the program to one that will have no chance to draw. And as stated above if we ever became CONSISTENTLY SUCCESSFUL we could negotiate a better deal. I hope we reach that point.
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RWR wrote: tps no where in there or anywhere else does it say the District turns over all revenue to Benson. It also doesn't read that it renews yearly. There was chatter in the last couple of years that the original lease expired and we entered a new one. As for no revenue from parking and concessions Tulane would need at least a 50,000 seat stadium w/ample parking provided to make it worthwhile to build an OCS. A small stadium dooms the program to one that will have no chance to draw. And as stated above if we ever became CONSISTENTLY SUCCESSFUL we could negotiate a better deal. I hope we reach that point.
Benson's deal with the District provides for that. That's our deal with the District its not going give details on Benson's deal with the District. Our deal is not with Benson. But Benson has the biggest influence with the landlord. So much so that's he's willing to give Tulane $MM's to build their own place and vacate the dome. There's no reason during football season that there can't be a crowd of at 45K+ real bodies in the dome. Having spoken to many involved, all parties with a financial stake feel like they could attract a once or twice a year marque game (like LSU did for Jerry Jones in Dallas) and sell 75K tickets. Like a kickoff classic or two. This is what you'll see once Tulane leaves the dome. We will be playing Southeastern on campus in front of 10K, while 3.7 miles away in the dome on the same day Alabama will be playing Notre Dame in front of 75K. Trust me the dome won't sit empty on those Saturdays in the fall, we we be competing for that same fan.
Last edited by tpstulane on Tue May 01, 2012 11:51 am, edited 1 time in total.
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They will likely only get one game a year and I stand by the fact that 6 or 7 guaranteed Tulane games for a SUCCESSFUL Tulane team is much more profitable for the Dome. Even w/us they can get that one marquee game. So then yo have 7 or 8 events.
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RWR wrote:They will likely only get one game a year and I stand by the fact that 6 or 7 guaranteed Tulane games for a SUCCESSFUL Tulane team is much more profitable for the Dome. Even w/us they can get that one marquee game. So then yo have 7 or 8 events.
I agree with that. But the "Successful" is the problem. It's not the dome IMO, but simply Tulane failing here. Once Tulane leaves, the dome will start out with one game, but the TV money, filled hotels and guaranteed sellouts will lead to more and more. Mich vs Ala in Dallas is slated for 2012. Expected crowd near 100K for the city of Dallas and Jerry Jones in Sept. The dome wants in on this action, Tulane is in the way as it stands today.
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