Monday, May 14, 2012

CIB Lost $1.1 Million On Super Bowl

The numbers don't lie (or do they), but CIB officials are doing the darnedest to put lipstick on a pig. After tallying the costs and the revenues attributable to the Super Bowl, CIB officials now claim the City lost about $1.1 million. The CIB claims that's about $200,000 more than it had expected to lose. The numbers that roll off their tongues don't account for their lying eyes. From the IBJ:
. . . But CIB and city tourism leaders said on Monday that the money was well spent considering the game could translate to $300 million in direct visitor spending over the next several years.
“There’s no question in my mind that the Super Bowl generated interest in Indianapolis,” said Leonard Hoops, CEO of the Indianapolis Convention & Visitors Association.
The Super Bowl accounted for about $100 million in spending, with another $200 million expected from the additional interest in room-night bookings that could result from the game.  
In the first quarter of 2012, the ICVA logged interest in 998,000 room nights for future conventions, a whopping 156-percent increase from the same time last year. If the city wins enough conventions over the next 10 years to fill a third of those room nights, it should capture the additional $300 million in visitor spending, Hoops said . . .
The $100 million figure is grossly exaggerated. Actual revenues from the hotel tax, food and beverage tax and auto rental tax were up about $2.9 million over the same period last year. The city's hotel tax rate is 18%, its food & beverage tax rate is 10% and its auto rental tax rate is 6%. According to the CIB, the City collected about a half million dollars less in hotel tax revenues than it expected to collect as a result of the Super Bowl. If spending was anywhere close to $100 million, the additional tax revenues should have been higher than $2.9 million. The unseasonably mild winter weather alone probably contributed to the spending indicated by the tax collections.  
As to the $200 million figure, I'm not sure what that number is suppose to represent--additional interest in room-night bookings that could result from the game? Okay, I could spend $100,000 on advertising my legal services and say that I expect $1 million additional interest in anticipated legal fees. That doesn't mean I'll actually earn another $1 million in fees after spending all that money on advertising.

The City also claims it only spent $6.6 million to host the Super Bowl. I guess it's not counting the $12.5 million it spent on the Georgia Street improvements (which are already in shambles and in need of repair), at least another $10 million in downtown improvements or the $25 million the host committee supposedly raised and spent on the Super Bowl.

3 comments:

CircleCityScribe said...

Face reality, Indianapolis!

You got a thrill, but it cost much more than One Million DOLLARS!

-Was it worth it, taxPAYERS? NO!

Downtown Indy said...

They need also to factor in the cost of tearing up and rebuilding the Georgia St area -- which was slapped together the first time.

Or are they double dipping the fed budget that paid for the initial installation to pay for the mulligan job?

If it wasn't so sickening, it would be funny to hear Lathrop call being a whopping 25% low on their estimate of loss as 'isn't much'.

CircleCityScribe said...

For $15 each, every member of the CIB could have gotten a 'thrill' on Washington ST....seems they weren't thrifty in their decisions.

One Million Dollars for a cheap thrill? -Oh, we taxPAYERS have to pay for this one, so it's OK....NOT!