paNOW Staff
“Today is a tough day.”
Prince Albert Raiders general manager Bruno Campese didn’t sugar coat the team’s financial situation during the team’s annual general meeting Monday at the Ches Leach Lounge—adding that the numbers “aren’t pretty.”
He isn’t wrong.
The Raiders reported a loss of $262,680 for the 2013-2014 season, a $210,000 cash loss factored with depreciation of assets.
That pushes the team’s overall operating deficit down to $394,819 (which doesn’t include capital assets or the WHL Education Fund).
“We have to live in the real world. Businesses can’t continue to take losses,” said Raiders president Dale McFee. “Because of lack of participation or lack capitalizing your opportunities or lack of people in the building, eventually rubber hits the road. Rubber is hitting the road.
“If Prince Albert loses the Raiders, then what is Prince Albert known for? When you’re an outsider and you’re talking about our community, it’s the one thing I hear over and over, ‘Yeah that’s the city, you guys have the Raiders,’” added McFee about talking to people when he travels across the country. We don’t have a lot of those things. If you lose something like that, you don’t get it back.”
The biggest reason for losses this year was that the Raiders overestimated their revenue. The Raiders budgeted for revenues to be at $2.3 million this year, but only produced $2 million. That $2 million figure is $200,000 less than the year before.
“A lot of it boils down to how you project revenues and if you over-project revenues that aren’t realistic, you set yourself up for failure,” said Raiders president Dale McFee.
“That’s what we did. I think we’ve corrected that detail, but that being said, we need to focus on having a product people want to watch.”
Their revenue was lower due to a significant decrease in ticket sales. The Raiders averaged 2,496 fans per game last season, 178 less per game and 6,417 total tickets less than the 2012-2013 season.
That could be due to the WHL going to a new electronic scheduling system, which saddled the Raiders with 12 games on Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays. McFee said the Raiders have always had trouble in drawing crowds on those days. This season, they only have four games on those days, with 25 games on the higher drawing Fridays and Saturdays.
“They went to an electronic schedule and we paid a little bit of a price,” said McFee. “But we can’t just fall back and blame that, but that’s part of it. We have to make some operating efficiencies and make some changes to sublimate that.”
In terms of making changes McFee said the Raiders will be looking to address “better service” to fans and sponsors, explore ways to generate external revenues and what financial impact a new arena would have.
But despite the Raiders’ recent financial struggles, there aren’t any plans to move, sell or fold the team. In fact, McFee said in his closing speech in the meeting, “there’s no way in hell this hockey club is leaving this city.”
“When I say that statement, I say that within the magnitude of doing everything we can to protect that,” said McFee. “That’s what we signed up for. This is a voluntary board made up of a lot of good people in the city and our surrounding region. It’s in our duty and it’s in our power to do everything we can to make sure we protect that interest.
“I’m certainly personally committed, as our others on the board are, to do exactly that. At the end of the day, it’s a blue sky environment and we live in the real world. We need to take immediate action.”
jdandrea@panow.com
On Twitter: @jeff_dandrea
