“I’d like to have it all, spring training and youth sports,” said Rick Perreault of Top Choice Baseball. “But I don’t see it as a possibility.”
Should the White Sox leave without a replacement Major League Baseball team, the Colorado Rockies and Arizona Diamondbacks could potentially leave as well. The Rockies’ contract states if there are only two teams in the area, they can be released from the contract that would otherwise have them here until 2013. The Diamondbacks’ contract stipulates if they are the only team in the region, they too can break their contract. The Rockies did not have any comment at this time about their future plans should the White Sox not get a replacement.
  
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“We started the search immediately and continued to talk to teams and we’ve basically not found any interest or found that teams are locked in to multi-year deals where they are,” said Scott Reifert, vice president of communications for the White Sox. “So we had this idea come to us and we presented it to the county as an alternative.”
Elliott D. Pollack & Company, Scottsdale, was hired to do an economic and fiscal impact study of the proposal. Some of its findings:
• Turning Tucson Electric Park into a youth tournament facility is expected to generate $46 million annually in economic impact compared to the $10.3 million the White Sox contribute each spring. The Metropolitan Tucson Convention Bureau estimates all three major league teams combined bring in an estimated $30 million in economic impact.
• In the remaining time of the White Sox’ contract, the upgraded facility would bring in $119 million more in economic impact than the White Sox would. This includes nearly $43 million in additional wages over the next four years and the creation of 452 new jobs.
• The new facility would generate annual tax revenues of $1.1 million for the City of Tucson, $871,870 for Pima County and nearly $1.7 million for the State of Arizona.
• The new facility will save Pima County an additional $400,000 to $700,000 per year on the operating costs of Kino Sports Complex. Savings that continue for several years, the White Sox said, because the team intends to run the tournament facility beyond its current commitment to Pima County.
“We would certainly expect to operate this facility for a longer term than our current commitment,” Reifert said. “We would need to negotiate with the county but we expect to have a much longer commitment to this to make it succeed.”
The White Sox will spend $3 million to convert part of the complex.
“Some of the fields can stay as they are, but some have to be smaller for the younger kids,” Reifert said. “If the county approves, we would start to run this as quickly as we can.”
The county has turned the proposal over to the Pima County Sports and Tourism Authority for review and comments before the County makes a decision.
The members of the authority met last week to discuss the plan.
“The consensus was there is a definite feeling we want to retain spring training baseball in Southern Arizona,” said Jack Camper, president of the Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce. “The proposals need to be examined in such a way to not lose the other teams. The idea of youth tournaments in Tucson is really quite exciting but it is a whole package of things that need to be examined, while continuing to work at bringing in a team.”
The members left with assignments to complete to work their way through the proposal.
“There is a lot of work yet to be done,” Camper said. “On our end and on the White Sox’ end. They walked away seeing more work needs to be done by them and then hopefully we can meet in the middle somewhere but not at the expense of spring training.”
Perreault was also in attendance to answer questions about the future site.
“I’d say they were about 50-50 this morning,” he said. “Those against it are afraid of losing spring training altogether.”
The Rockies and Diamondbacks also contribute around $10.3 million to the local economy each year.
The fear of losing all of spring training doesn’t appear to fall on Perreault.
“Where would they go right now,” Perreault said. “We need to take care of them yes, but there isn’t a facility readily available for them to move to tomorrow. It takes time to get everything approved to build a stadium and then time to build it. I would be more nervous about that being a possibility if there were complexes ready. The earliest the Rockies could leave would be 2011.”
Perreault is excited about the tournament site. He operates tournaments out of Phoenix for the last few years because there isn’t a facility nice enough and safe enough for teams to come down to. And while the sites he organizes tournaments at usually have 24 to 30 fields, he said the eight-field proposal is a perfect place to start.
“It will be in high demand and should be sold out very early on,” he said. “Having eight fields isn’t something that will keep you from attracting teams. You don’t want to fail coming out of the gate either by starting with too many. Your local teams can play on it during the week and your out-of-town teams will play on it on the weekends.”
Perreault said the youth traveling sports industry is booming right now despite what the national economy is doing.
“I have a November tournament in Phoenix and I have eight teams from Minnesota coming,” he said. “I have had them from as far as New York. There is a real misconception people have with the demographic of people that come. Most associate it with low-end hotels and just fast food. But that is not the case at all. The parents get a vacation out of it too. The top two hotels people book at are Hilton and Embassy Suites. They eat at upper scale sit down restaurants because they have had nothing but fast food at the park.”
Around the corner from the Kino Sports Complex on Ajo Way, Matt Harding, sales manager of the Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites Tucson Airport North, 4550 S. Palo Verde Road, feels mixed on the proposal.
“March definitely has been good for us with people coming in for all the games,” he said. “But March is a great time of year for anyone to come so putting all our eggs in one basket doesn’t serve anyone as well as having a constant stream of income throughout the year.”
Harding likes the idea of a tournament site, but thinks losing a tie to a major league team can’t be good.
“There is a loss of a bit of caché with something like this,” Harding said. “It is always great to tie your city to Major League Baseball. As far as that being an attraction, it brings other large conventions in during that time because there is something more to do in town, that is a drawback.”
Contact reporter Joe Pangburn at jpangburn@azbiz.com or (520) 295-4259.
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