More on the Generals Brigade
This morning, we wrote about the admission by a group of Greensboro hockey boosters that they did indeed owe the city $200,000. That was the fee promised to the Greensboro Coliseum to manage the day-to-day operations of the Greensboro Generals hockey team.
The admission comes in a court filing called a "confession of judgment" (read it in its entirety here). It basically says don't bother suing us, we admit we owe you money.
But that doesn't mean the Generals Brigade (the LLC set up by the five owners) will actually pay back the city. In a letter written in January, the team's attorney said the ownership group had no assets.
"I believe that the persuit of a claim against the Generals Brigade, LLC will yield no money for the City of Greensboro."
City officials doubt they will ever collect, either, but the court order ensures that if the Generals Brigade ever came upon any money, the city would have first dibs.
Comments (6)
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Is there any move by someone in the community to boycott the businesses of the five business owners? I know that they can't be held legally responsible because they were protected by the LLC. I am curious to know if anyone in the community is trying to hold them personally responsible. I suspect that a prominent business ownera could be induced to come up with $200,000 in personal funds if it was hurting his automotive sales business, for example.
Posted on March 31, 2005 10:59 AM
Keehar,
I don't know if there's an community boycott out there, but City Attorney Terry Wood said the debt would not impair the owners' ability to do business with the city. Don Brady's Brady Trane occasionally does work for the city, but Wood said that since Brady wasn't personally liable for the debt, his company can't be penalized for it.
Posted on March 31, 2005 11:08 AM
How about the other angle of the story? The fact that the city put on the team so that our lovely Coliseum wouldn't be the largest arena in North America without a sports tennant. Or the fact that the city used the team because the benefits to the Coliseum and to surrounding businesses outweighed the risk of minor losses.
How about the Generals use of the facility caused the Coliseum to actually lose less money for the city than in years past? Or how about just reporting the fact that the Coliseum loses millions for the city yearly anyway.
If we showed the city losing money on nearly everything that is "invested" in, we'd be boycotting a lot of things.
Posted on March 31, 2005 11:35 AM
Matt, if you can continue to turn up the heat on the Generals, I can guarentee you will be on the front page everytime.
It is a shame that ONLY negative hockey news makes it to A1, while POSITIVE news is overlooked or given the short-shaft.
I do appreciate the stories. Here's a story idea, poll the N&R staff to see what the last thing they saw at the coliseum was (non-work related). You may be surprised to find that most people have not attended an event in many years, say the "Matt Brown years".
Posted on March 31, 2005 4:52 PM
I realize I am very "off topic" with this note, but I have a Matt Brown story (since his name was mentioned in the last post). On the Friday of ACC Tournament weekend, I was driving through Jacksonville, FL and listening to a local AM sports emphasis radio station. My ears really perked up when the DJ stated that he was very glad the ACC tournament was NOT being held in Greensboro, NC this year. He went on to say that the Greensboro Coliseum general manager, Matt Brown, was very difficult (my word, not his). This DJ was quite upset and very vocal about not liking Matt Brown, but no details were given. It was very discouraging to hear my fair city portrayed negatively because of an apparent unfortunate disagreement between two individuals.
Posted on March 31, 2005 9:38 PM
It's tough to sell a coliseum with Soo many open dates. Perhaps 200k is a small price to pay to keep the place open and staffed.
Question is, keep her open with a deficit to the brigade-lower operations cost, or have an empty venue. Maybe, open and losing money means a wash/wash maybe gain all in all.
Geez, you run a place like that with rules, you will lose. I say bring back Tom Osborne, run it wild with the promoters and make a buck.
Posted on April 4, 2005 8:38 PM