RGV News: After turbulent summer, Bees face new challenges

HIDALGO — The Rio Grande Valley Killer Bees are midway through the first season of their new State Farm Arena lease with the City of Hidalgo, one they consider a “partnership.”

An 18 percent cut in the team’s per-game arena fees should save more than $30,000 this season. And free rent for the team’s pro shop could help boost profits.

But plenty of work lies ahead.

“In the overall scheme (the revised lease is) helping us, but we haven’t helped ourselves,” Bees president Trey Medlock said. “We’re not selling enough tickets, we’re not selling enough corporate, so the impetus really falls back on us doing our job to generate more revenue.”

Though there has been some recent progress — like the season-high crowd 4,813 on Jan. 14 — that hasn’t been the norm. And the Bees are trying to figure out why.

Current attendance is tracking below the informal goal Medlock and franchise ownership set for finishing close to matching 2010-11 attendance — the lowest in team history.

If turnout doesn’t improve, the team would record a 23.2 percent drop from the year before.

Through 20 home games, the Bees’ average announced attendance is 3,354 — eighth among the Central Hockey League’s 14 teams. They’ve never finished lower than last year’s seventh in the league.

Already, the Bees have drawn announced crowds of less than 3,000 seven times — all a first in the franchise’s nine-year history.

Three single-game crowds set records for the team’s smallest; the most recent came Dec. 7, when a game against Texas drew just 2,318.

As of December, club seat sales, which are sold by the City of Hidalgo, are down more than 20 percent from the year before — less than half of the premium seats’ capacity.

The Bees continue to face challenges from several fronts. Some they can confront. Others are beyond their control.

The Valley economy has slowed and there aren’t as many Winter Texans in the area, depriving the Bees one of their top targets.

It’s also the ninth season of hockey and the novelty locally has passed.

To generate some new excitement, the Bees lowered group-seating prices and did not raise season ticket prices.

The tempered ticket prices came as the team employed a more crowd-pleasing style under highly respected coach Terry Ruskowski — a team with a shot at its best season yet.

Shadows remain from a damaging spring that almost destroyed the franchise.

With the team’s ownership changed and legal issues resolved, Medlock came in and practically rebuilt the front office over the summer. He admits the Bees needed an extra month to get ready for the season. That lost time left them less prepared than previous campaigns.

The Bees opened the 2011-12 season with 15 of their first 19 games at home and five on Tuesdays or Wednesdays — exacerbating problems from a short and chaotic summer.

Team officials normally circled the annual Thanksgiving-eve home game as a big draw for attendance.

But a dwindling number of nearby teams — besides Laredo — left that game off a schedule drawn by the Bees’ previous management and one Medlock couldn’t change.

All of those factors have resulted in more empty seats than ever before. And Medlock acknowledges a growing stigma among fans that the atmosphere isn’t the same and nobody goes to games anymore.

“Could be (the lack of novelty), but we’ve got to work through that,” Medlock said. “It’s just like any business. It was fun, it was exciting, it was new. But I still believe that fans will accept a winner, they want to be associated with a winner.

“But all of those things are challenges, absolutely.”

The Bees still exist because of the revised lease agreement primary owner Joe Sakulenzki and his partners reached with the City of Hidalgo last June.

When the team’s original lease agreement was signed prior to the 2003-04 season, the per-game rent was set at $4,001 per game. The agreement called for a 3 percent annual rate increase.

By last season, that pushed up the team’s per-game rent more than 22 percent — to around $4,920 per game. To keep the Bees, who still have the first choice of arena dates ahead of other local teams, the City of Hidalgo cut the rate back to its original price.

“What we tried to do is take little bites out of the pieces out of it,” State Farm Arena general manager Eric Blockie said. “And that was one of them that we did.”

But new attendance challenges haven’t pushed the Bees’ management to lure fans into the stands while taking a loss — a move they say would devalue the game experience.

As ever, the Bees do not give away tickets or greatly reduced prices to bring fans into the arena.

Their season-ticket base has remained steady as the year before. Those most loyal fans pay the same price for the full slate of games.

The team shaved $2 off the price of group tickets — to $10 each — but walk-up prices on game days now cost $2 more.

Medlock said he hasn’t heard much negative feedback on the walk-up increase. The team is in the “preliminary” stages of re-evaluating pricing structures for their 10th season that could bring prices closer to their first season in the Valley, he said.

And yes, the Bees fully expect to play next season in the CHL. Their arena lease expires Oct. 1, 2013 and their league license agreement runs through the 2012-13 season.

The season-ticket renewal packages for next season will be ready by early February, Medlock said.

“We just keep plugging away,” Medlock said.

Brian Sandalow covers the Rio Grande Valley Killer Bees. You can reach him at (956) 683-4436 or via email at bsandalow@themonitor.com.