Venue News & Notes: To Keep Pacers, Indy To Invest in Conseco Fieldhouse

Indianapolis will sink at least $33.5 million into the operations of the Conseco Fieldhouse, home of the Indiana Pacers, city officials said this week. The public investment will include $10 million per year to subsidize the operations of the arena for the next three years and at least $3.5 million for capital improvements, the Indianapolis Star reported. In exchange, the Pacers have committed to stay in Indianapolis through the 2012-13 basketball season or pay back the entire amount…

…Champion BMW Oracle Racing says San Francisco is now the only U.S. city being considered to host the 34th America’s Cup match. San Francisco is home to the Golden Gate Yacht Club, which sponsors BMW Oracle Racing and is the new home for the oldest trophy in international sports. San Diego and Newport, RI, former sites of America’s Cup racing, and Long Beach, CA, site of the 1984 Olympic sailing venue, also had expressed interest in hosting the match, which will be sailed in 2013 or 2014…

…The nonprofit Tampa Bay Partnership wants to help mediate between the Tampa Bay Rays, the city of St. Petersburg, FL, and anyone else who wants to keep the team in the bay area. The Tampa Bay Partnership, which coordinates regional business and governmental interests, recently sent a letter to members saying it wants to help the Rays stay and “prosper” in Tampa Bay. “We will be reaching out to all key stakeholders to understand how best to achieve this outcome,” said the letter from Stuart L. Rogel, CEO/president of the Tampa Bay Partnership, and Gary Sasso, CEO/president of the Carlton Fields law firm…

…It would be the first of its kind in Canada and a possible solution to the sports-complex-arena problem in Toronto’s Lower Don Lands. An all-glass, four-arena facility with the ice pads stacked on top of each other, it looks more like an office building than an ice rink, and, according to confidential documents obtained by the Star, this latest design for the Portlands sports complex, long planned on the waterfront, would be eight stories high. The first rink would be halfway below ground, but the other three would be surrounded by glass with a view of the water. Some underground parking would be available, with additional spots on nearby land during big tournaments…

…The Santa Clara, CA, City Council will continue to push through the countless procedural hoops left to keep the San Francisco 49ers stadium project on track, including considering the legal framework to allow local businesses to provide thousands of parking spots for NFL game days and the engineering contract for designing the move of a utility substation. In one of its first opportunities to revisit the stadium issue since the June election, the council will review three matters on the agenda, including finalizing the vote tally that wound up approving the $937 million stadium deal by a 58%-42% margin.

Password must contain the following:

A lowercase letter

A capital (uppercase) letter

A number

Minimum 8 characters