As one of the XL Center’s biggest tenants, UConn athletics is likely key to the Hartford arena’s future.
Much of the attention lately has focused on debating the long-term prospects of both in the Capital City, but behind the scenes there have been drawn-out contract negotiations related to UConn’s short-term contractual commitment to Hartford.
UConn and XL Center manager Capital Region Development Authority have struggled since last summer to come to terms on a new lease that would ensure UConn men’s and women’s basketball and men’s hockey play in Hartford through 2019.
“It’s surprising how long this has taken and how long it has taken to get here,” said Michael Freimuth, CRDA’s executive director. “Every time we think we’re close, something pops.”
The biggest issue in coming to terms on a new five-year lease has been determining how many games UConn athletics will play at the XL Center.
The stakes are high for Hartford because UConn sporting events serve as the lifeblood for downtown entertainment, providing on a single night thousands of ticketholders and customers for XL Center and local bars and restaurants, and generating the type of buzz the city hopes to have on a more consistent basis.
CRDA thought a deal was so close that it mentioned a new five-year agreement with UConn in its annual report, which was released in October. But no such deal was ever signed.
UConn says there’s no question that it will continue to play at XL, which offers the largest indoor seating capacity in the state, but it’s not clear how many games the school is willing to commit in the coming years.
UConn hasn’t signed a multi-year lease at XL Center since its last deal with AEG Management expired in 2013.
Currently, UConn and CRDA are operating on an unsigned one-year lease that expires in June.
That shorter agreement too has been held up, mostly by language regarding how XL Center and UConn will split up advertising signage revenue on the venue’s new digital signs, both Freimuth and Michael Enright, UConn’s associate director of athletic communications, confirmed. However, both sides said UConn’s trustees have signed the one-year lease, which is going through legal approvals and could be finalized by the end of this month.
Hammering out terms
With the regular seasons for all three teams now over, UConn and CRDA are back at the bargaining table trying to hammer out terms for the 2015-2016 season that kicks off this fall. If CRDA has its way, the agreement will be for five years.
CRDA is pushing for upwards of 25 regular season UConn games a year in that agreement, according to Freimuth, which is the same number the school’s three teams played in the recently concluded season.
The good news is UConn sports saw increased activity in Hartford over the past year, thanks to men’s hockey playing 11 of its games at XL Center — the result of it joining the prestigious Hockey East conference, in which the team played home games against such powerhouses as Boston University and Providence College.
Those 11 Hartford hockey games averaged 5,814 attendees; the team finished with an overall record of 10-19-7.
“The hockey was great this year. We were thrilled with the attendance,” Enright said.
Enright said UConn also needs to ensure it holds enough games on-campus in Storrs, where its growing student population can walk to cheer on their teams.
Despite the snail’s pace of the XL Center lease talks, Enright sought to reassure those concerned with UConn’s future in Hartford.
“I don’t think there’s any doubt we’ll be playing games there for a long, long time,” Enright said.
Bargaining power
The lease talks are occurring against a backdrop of UConn’s two basketball championships last year and its hockey team joining one of the highest-profile Division I conferences.
Does that give UConn more leverage?
Freimuth wouldn’t go that far. He said the dispute over digital signs at the XL Center is a complex one that involves IMG Sports, which holds marketing rights for UConn athletics. Freimuth also understands UConn’s desire to spread its brand across the state as much as possible, as evidenced by the school moving several hoops and hockey matchups to Bridgeport’s Webster Bank Arena and Mohegan Sun in the past two years.
At the same time, XL’s operating costs continue to rise, and CRDA is concerned that the state’s tight fiscal situation could make it harder to cover the arena’s operating shortfall, which was $1.5 million in the most recent year.
“It’s not so much that one side is in a different position than the other side,” Freimuth said.
He said CRDA is looking for some longer-term certainty because it would allow the agency to price its events more favorably and possibly attract new, high-profile events.
“There’s certainty in planning,” Freimuth said. “Doing one of these [leases] every year is painful. I’ll be straight up.”
The Long Game
A persistent hope among some local sports fans is that a rebuilt XL Center might draw an NHL hockey team back to Hartford.
But prospects could be called uncertain at best. CRDA would love for an NHL team to relocate to Hartford, but it knows the strongest and most certain play is to forge a stronger bond with UConn sports.
Fresh off a $35 million XL Center renovation that CRDA estimates extended the venue’s life for five years — and in the midst of an ugly state budget cycle — the quasi-public CRDA doesn’t plan to ask the legislature this year for the estimated $250 million to $500 million it would take to renovate or rebuild XL Center, Freimuth said.
But it will likely make a formal request next session, he added.
If and when the money does come through, Freimuth said CRDA wants to ink a 20-year agreement with UConn that he said would mean more revenue sharing for the state’s flagship university in exchange for a greater commitment to play in Hartford.
CRDA wants that long-term deal — which would be separate from the ongoing lease negotiations — to guarantee 30 UConn games a year in Hartford.
But XL may not have as big a piece of UConn hockey for long. Under its membership agreement with Hockey East, UConn is required to put a shovel in the ground for a new on-campus arena in the 2016-2017 academic year, Enright said. Early estimates peg the size at 185,000 square feet, with a minimum cost of $20 million.
The arena would replace the 2,000-seat Freitas Ice Forum. If UConn plays more hockey games on campus, more XL Center basketball games would be needed to get to the 30 games CRDA wants in a long-term arrangement.
