With the Intrust Bank Arena taking dramatic shape in Old Town, it was time for the arena’s management to do likewise. And it’s encouraging that rather than bring in an outsider, Philadelphia-based management company SMG tapped Chris Presson, formerly president of the Wichita Thunder and Wichita Wingnuts and a two-time Central Hockey League executive of the year. Known for being organized and hardworking, Presson started his job Monday at the Kansas Coliseum, which he also will manage. The expectations for general manager Presson and his staff will be as great as the Intrust Bank Arena’s potential to enliven downtown.
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15 Comments
uh reen uh…
Chris Presson will need all the help he can get to entice the public into the new white elephant downtown ice hockey arena.
For example, Presson’s former Wichita Wingnuts baseball club gave out free tickets for their baseball game last night at Lawrence-Dumont Stadium. As a former Wranglers baseball fan, I drove by L-D stadium to see what was going on there.
Even with all the free tickets, only about 800 fans were in attendance last night in a stadium that can hold 8,000 fans.
I was a fan for ten years of the Wranglers baseball team because it was a farm team of the Kansas City Royals. Hopefully this motivated Wranglers players to work hard to move up. In the long tradition of baseball, the Wranglers and National Baseball Congress were owned by private owners, Bob and Mindy Rich of Rich Foods Corporation.
Now the Wranglers replacement, the Wichita Wingnuts is basically a City of Wichita municipal sandlot team. Kind of takes away the real baseball mystique.
So good luck Chris Presson … you will need it trying to develop some interest in the downtown arena.
I’d like to think the arena might work. But for the life of me I can’t figure out how.
Wichita is a minor-league market and has been going lower and lower down the ranks of minor-league markets. From the Triple-A Aeros to the Double-A Wranglers to the decidedly-B Wingnuts…
The last time anything close to big league status was with a second-rate sport, indoor soccer with the Wichita Wings. Remember the Chamber of Commerce spin back then? “We’re playing New York! We’re playing Chicago! Wichita will be the Green Bay of the Major Indoor Soccer League! (MISL.) (Oh, and RIP.)
Regardless of sport, event, concert, ice show, circus, rodeo, tractor pull, revival, the most anyone can excpect from a Wichita crowd is about ten-thousand butts in the seats.
Do we know of a single event scheduled for this new albatross? Are we still at the speculation stage? Since we voted out gambling I suppose taking bets on how long before its announced a complete failure is out of the question. Or maybe that’s already happened before it gets built.
JWink, I went to my granddaughters softball game last evening. Those 10 - 14 year old girls play some entertaining ball! FREE every game!
In the discussion about the bailout for Warren I commented that it is hard to fail at a Sports Bar in Wichita. Sports bars do well for some very good reasons. Many of us have college education - we can watch our teams at sports bars. We also have a lot of people who follow major professional sports - the Bears, the Cubbies, etc etc etc. Again, we can follow our teams at sports bars - and a number of these establishments have a clientele that follows specific teams.
An arena is a different situation. To make THAT work (at least for sports) will require a much larger and more unified following. However, I see no way it will work. How many basketball fans, for example, will flock to the Arena to waych the Wichita Nutcases play B-league basketball. Or will we continue to go to our favorite establishment and watch the Jayhawks, Bruins, etc?
I had thought that the Wingnuts might succeed - baseball is a bit different. Can they make it a family outing where we grandparents take the munchkins? Years ago the Wranglers did a fairly decent job of that. But the Arena? I don’t see how they will make that work.
linda - I don’t think they will admit failure - what I will be watching for is when they come to the County Commission for operating/maintenence funds. Then I will ask where the $24+ million loss reserve went. It was sucked dry by cost overruns.
I agree about the kids games. My boys are wild on a soccer field.
A correction.
Turns out the MISL isn’t dead yet.
Looks like there are eight remaining teams.
According to Wikipedia, there’s been a recent upsurge in “Futsal” (from the Spanish for “futbal de la salon” (something like that) in Mexico. Perhaps there are enough of Wings nuts to attempt another stab at indoor soccer.
Another odd choice, but perhaps possible given its novelty: the Major Indoor Lacrosse League. Box lacrosse is supposedly fun to watch. And Wichita’s 10,000 fan crowd would be a boon for the league, provided you promoted it right.
But you have to know the market. Indoor moto-cross, monster truck shows, and tractor pulls have to be booked.
Maybe a bunch of people could buy those tiny combines from the Shriners and hold indoor combine demolition derbies! The real think tends to pack ‘em in at the state fair.
ROLLERBALL!!!!!
Mmmm arena?
Won’t go. Can’t afford a good seat and place to park.
Ben,
I think you’ve got the winner there!
The arena is just the latest in a long string of boondoggles “guaranteed to revitalize the downtown area” and costing us taxpayers millions more than that real estate is worth. Why can’t we admit that cities grow on the outside and turn all those decaying office buildings into a large park, put in a nice fountain and call it even!
Did they ever figure out the traffic and parking issue? Probably not, considering how difficult it is already to park at Century 2. I don’t see myself ever going there.
What a waste of money.
Regarding the non-existent parking for the white elephant downtown arena, I understand the latest “thinking” by our elected hold-over county commissioners, Unruh, Norton and Winters, is to use the existing 4,000 (+) car parking lot at the Kansas Coliseum up north in Park City.
City buses would be waiting at the Kansas Coliseum to shuttle downtown arena attendees some ten miles back downtown to be discharged somewhere in the vicinity of the arena. These shuttle buses would then proceed to Lawrence-Dumont Stadium UNLESS it is being used for a baseball game, in which case the buses would proceed to Century II parking lots UNLESS a function is going on there, in which case the buses would return to Kansas Coliseum to await their return downtown at the end of the function at the downtown albatross arena.
It still hasn’t been decided what to do in the event of some kind of weather calamity at the dangerous glass and steel downtown 1/2 billion dollar arena. Perhaps a safe room for 14,000 people could be built nearby.
When this boondogle arena was conceived by the Henry Luke and Harvey Sorenson’s Wichita Visioneering group … where was the vaunted city planning oversight which costs Sedgwick County taxpayers a lot according to the city/county budgets?
Another way to hide the cost overruns:
http://www.kansas.com/news/story/445806.html
Which taxes paid for arena work?
Commissioners square off over $1.7 million in staff time
One county commissioner says he is concerned that taxpayers will think Sedgwick County has broken its promise that it would not use property taxes for the Intrust Bank Arena by allowing county staff to work on it.
Commissioner Kelly Parks said Wednesday that he believes the county’s general fund should be reimbursed more than $1 million from arena sales tax money “in keeping with our promise not to spend (property) taxes on the arena.”
Ben, It is somewhat refreshing to hear ONE county commissioner is worried about the promises made to the taxpayers.
JWink - do you have any information on that hair-brained scheme for parking?