Cashing In On Sports
Searching For Year-Round Returns
By Guy Junker

When Three Rivers Stadium stood on the North Side, the Pirates and Steelers played all their home games there. Pitt used it to play an occasional football game. It regularly housed the biggest rock concerts of the era, religious rallies, charity softball games, and high school baseball and football championships. It was a very busy place that easily booked over 100 events a year.

Times have changed. The Steelers and Pitt share Heinz Field - that leaves about 350 open dates a year there. The Pirates have PNC Park, Pitt has the Petersen Events Center, Duquesne has the Palumbo Center. The Penguins have Mellon Arena. All have a lot of days and nights when not much happens.

"You have to remember it wasn't long ago that the Pirates and Steelers played at Three Rivers, and the Penguins and Duquesne played at the arena, with Pitt playing there occasionally," says Tom Rooney of the Rooney Sports & Entertainment Group. "Now you have five venues competing for the same events...buildings sit idle."

Rooney is working to change that. He recently launched Rooney Sports & Entertainment Group, with an impressive client list that includes the Steelers, Wheeling Nailers, Iceoplex, and the Washington Wild Things, along with a fistful of nonsports customers.

Rooney, nephew of Steelers' founder Art Rooney Sr., has sports marketing in his blood. For nearly three decades he's worked for the Meadows, the Penguins and Spirit under Edward DeBartolo; the Penguins under Mario Lemieux; and for Pace Entertainment as Executive Director of the Star Lake Amphitheatre. From Elton John to Stan Terlecki, Rooney has seen it all.

What he is seeing now, however, is a different sports and entertainment landscape altogether. "In some ways my job is easier; in some ways it's tougher," he says. "There are more potential clients, but it's more difficult to place events with them."

Having worked with both the sports and music industries, Rooney knows it can be a tricky mix. "Sometimes sports has tunnel vision."

It took three seasons at PNC Park before the Pirates allowed a concert there. But Bruce Springsteen was a huge success last summer.

"By last season we felt good about the turf maturing and its ability to withstand an event of this magnitude," says Bob Derda, Director of Business Development for the Pirates. "The day after the show we held our breath, but the field looked great."

The Pirates rented hard plastic Terraplas so the grass could breathe while fans walked and the Boss rocked. They might have tried it again this summer, but there are no big stadium shows to lure to either PNC or Heinz.

"The challenge for us is to work around the baseball schedule and the weather," says Derda, who mentions that the Pirates take up half the good weather days at PNC Park.

With the Steelers playing later in the calendar year, Heinz Field is available much of the better-weather months for things other than football. In fact, the first-ever event there was not a football game but an NSYNC concert - much to the chagrin of local hard core football fans. This summer's big ancillary event is the international soccer game between Chelsea and AS Roma at Heinz on July 29. Pittsburgh competed with more than 100 cities to get the game, and an estimated crowd of 40,000 is expected to attend.

"The game will be televised to 50 countries," says Jimmie Sacco, Executive Director of Stadium Management at Heinz Field.

According to Sacco, they have a whole campaign put together to get as much use out of the building as possible. Recently they held Golden Gloves boxing in the Coca Cola Great Hall. "We're going to have a high school football doubleheader to help kick off the season in September," Sacco adds. "We had the Rolling Rock Town Fair last summer and the WPIAL and City League play football championship games at Heinz."

The Pirates' Derda emphasized a similar philosophy. "We have 100 to 125 corporate type events a year. Everything from weddings to bar mitzvahs. It's similar to a hotel."

"It's a sellers' market out there," says Rooney. "There are a lot more buildings now and a lot of suitors."

Soccer at Heinz. Bridal shows at PNC. WNBA at the Pete. Even the Wild Things are thinking about holding concerts at Falconi Field. The age of multipurpose entertainment buildings are gone. With aggressive marketing, hopefully so are a lot of the dark nights at Pittsburgh's stadiums and arenas.

Guy Junker covers sports business for Pittsburgh Sports Report.