Hockey, budgets and barbeque
I spent part of the afternoon over at the Greensboro Coliseum for the monthly meeting of the War Memorial Commission, the arena's advisory body.
Coliseum officials are still talking with one potential owner about bringing an ECHL team to the coliseum next year. Managing Director Matt Brown spent six hours on the Tuesday and Wednesday of the week of the men's ACC Tournament talking with a person he wouldn't identify about bringing a hockey team back to Lee Street.
The unidentified owner would still have to purchase a team and secure league permission to move the franchise to Greensboro.
The proposed 2006-07 coliseum budget submitted last week to the city manager's office assumes the arena won't have a hockey tenant next year.
Speaking of budgets, the coliseum is currently projected to run a smaller deficit than projected during 2005-06 - about $1.6 million, or roughly $192,000 less than the budgeted deficit of about $1.82 million. An increase in concert bookings and higher attendance for family and consumer shows helped cut the deficit, along with a large increase in concessions revenue.
Next year's projected deficit is about $1.77 million. The slight increase is attributed to the absence of the men's ACC and NCAA tournament games the coliseum hosted this year.
Speaking of the ACC and NCAA tournaments, here are a couple of fun facts from the 28 basketball games the coliseum hosted in March: 10,000 barbeque sandwiches and 90,000 souvenir cups of soda were sold during Greensboro's run as "Tournament Town."
Update (4/7): More from the meeting - including a "Michael Jordan" sighting - at Sandy Carmany's blog.