Predators slashing ticket prices to attract fans; Nashville taxpayers will end up biggest losers

My post earlier this week foretold that the Nashville Predators are feeling the heat from crowds that are not enough to support the team under its contract with the city.

If the NHL team does not average crowds of 14,000 this season, it has the power to move. And it will, probably to Canada. Crowds here are nowhere close to the needed number. And the economic downturn will hit here longer than in other places around the country and North America.

So the team is slashing ticket prices and adding freebies to bring out families. Other NHL teams are doing the same. But those consumers already are cutting back in their budgets just on Christmas. NHL hockey does not even enter into the spending picture. And some families are even losing jobs.

NHL hockey is an extravagance that Nashville should never have courted in the first place and built a new arena that loses mega millions of dollars each year.

The exact numbers are these, all thanks to now governor but then Mayor Phil Bredesen:

* $20 million fee for the NHL team;

* $5 million annually for costs of an arena built for an NHL team that Bredesen promised would be making a profit after the first couple of years. Now, it loses $5 million a year, is deteriorating and requiring spending for repairs and will lose even more money since the Predators will no longer be a tentant when they bolt. Remember, pro sports is a business, first.

So if your city somewhere in the United States or Canada needs a hockey team, there's one in Nashville that is hurting and hoping for better days. And there are taxpayers who have paid dearly for an extragavance while teachers, police and city workers will soon have to lose their jobs because of economic hard times and foolish public policy.