By Jeffrey S. Young
A few months back, as part of managing his investment, Nielson and his staff crunched the numbers for this season’s budget. The team plays a series of matches in July at a new stadium in the Roseville Galleria, where it is hoping finally to get break-out attention this year. After balancing stadium rental, salaries and day-to-day operations against ticket sales (40 percent of revenue) and sponsorships (60 percent of revenue), Nielson saw something he had never seen before:
A profit.
Of $12.
“It was a little tough to swallow,” he laughs.
But Nielson’s not doing it for the money. He’s doing it for the love. And the bennies. For an avid tennis player, the owner gets the kind of perks that are priceless. “I do get a pass into the player’s lounge at the U.S. Open, that was about as good as it gets,” Nielson explains. He also rattles off chances to hang with the players, winning a few games off some of his stars to decide who pays for lunch, having access to the newest, coolest, “bling-blingiest” tennis shoes and gear (courtesy of Adidas) and rackets (courtesy of Wilson).
And then there’s that Kournikova thing. “I also got to spend a week traveling with Anna in Europe,” he adds dreamily.
WTT combines tennis with the traditional team-sport concept found in baseball, football and basketball. Players wear team jerseys with their names imprinted on the back. Fans are encouraged to hoot and holler. Disc jockeys spin music between matches.
The Capitals roster this year is Elena Likhovtseva, Mark Knowles, Sam Warburg and Michelle Larcher de Brito, who is 14 and was drafted by the Capitals in March. The marquee player is Kournikova, who will play a doubles match and mixed doubles match July 5, opening day for the Capitals in Allstate Stadium at Roseville’s Westfield Galleria.
Though a back injury and, some say, the distraction of the media have slowed Kournikova’s tennis career, Nielson says the 24-year-old is still a great doubles player. “The longer we play her, the better she gets,” he says.
The Capitals’ fan base has increased with each venue change. At Gold River Racquet Club in Gold River, average attendance was 2,200. The move to Sunrise Mall five years ago increased visibility and pushed attendance to 3,500 for each day’s event. Allstate Stadium holds 4,300, and given Roseville’s amenable tennis demographic (30 to 55), Nielson is hopeful there will be sellouts during the home matches from July 5 to July 25.
The owner promises Sacramento tennis fans a great show this month. And with the new locale and Kournikova, who has influenced dozens of Russian women to become professional tennis players (several Russians are ranked in the world’s top 10), you never know what’s going to happen, Nielson says.
“I just want to bring great tennis to Sacramento,” he says. “I just love tennis.”
For those wanting a bigger bowl in which to swim, buying a team in the Golden Baseball League is an option. Teams run between $1 million and $2 million. Investors can also pay smaller sums to be a minority owner, or they can spread the risk over multiple teams, says Golden League CEO Dave Kaval.
Operating costs per team average $750,000, but profitability varies widely. The league’s flagship team is the Chico Outlaws, which generates more than $1 million in revenue, Kaval says. The Outlaws would sell for about $2 million.
The league plans to establish a team in an outlying Sacramento city such as Lincoln, Rocklin or Roseville, Kaval says, but not Sacramento because of fan competition with the Triple A Sacramento River Cats.
Yet even affiliated teams struggle to break even. The Bakersfield Blaze, a Single A baseball team, loses some $200,000 a year, says Blaze owner D.G. Elmore, who blames rickety Sam Lynn Ball Park, where the team plays, and the infamous Bakersfield heat.
“One game we had 88 people in the stands and the temperature was 117 degrees,” Elmore says. “The temperature was higher than the fan count.”
Still, Elmore says he could sell the team for a 10 percent to 15 percent profit of his nearly $5 million initial investment.
Jim Weyermann, president and general manager of the San Jose Giants, says location is critical to the success of a small, professional franchise. “Your profits are only limited by the quality of management and size of the market,” he says. “At the end of the day, bigger markets have more corporate money.”
“You have to be humble with the community,” Weyermann says. “You need someone who can sell the product, and sometimes successful business owners have lost those grassroots skills.”
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