Two more teams put on game faces

Minor-league basketball and hockey to take up residence in Broomfield

James Paton, Rocky Mountain News

Published February 1, 2006 at midnight

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Two new teams, the Rocky Mountain Rage and the Colorado 14ers, are ready to enter an increasingly crowded and competitive Colorado sports scene.

The minor-league hockey franchise and the Continental Basketball Association club will begin late this year, seeking to draw family-oriented fans who are fed up with the cost of big-time sporting events.

They also hope to entice corporate sponsors who don't have the cash to tout themselves at a venue such as the Pepsi Center.

"The price for major-league sports of any kind has become very corporate-driven," said John Frew, who is launching the teams at a new arena in Broomfield with business partner Tim Wiens. "It's out of the range of affordability for the average person, and I think minor-league sports begin to answer that need."

The owners plan to unveil the team names, logos and other information in a news conference today. The Rage and the 14ers will be the anchor tenants of the Broomfield Event Center, scheduled to be finished in November. The arena, off U.S. 36, also is set to host everything from concerts to graduations.

When the hoopla fades, they will face plenty of challenges. Attracting fans, sponsors and media will be tough in a metro area that's home to the Avalanche, Broncos, Nuggets, Rockies, Crush, Mammoth and Rapids. There's college, too, and the Colorado Eagles Central Hockey League franchise.

"I think if you look at the metro area as a whole, it is the most saturated sports market in the country," said Steve Sander, a sports marketing expert and principal of Pure Brand Communications in Denver.

The new teams will seek to distinguish themselves by offering cheaper entertainment. The average cost of a ticket to the games is less than $20. Some per-game season ticket seats for basketball are as low as $7, while hockey will start at $9.

On the sponsorship side, companies will pay anywhere from $5,000 to $200,000 a year to align themselves with the teams.

Sander, however, noted that the Nuggets, to cite one example, have taken steps to make themselves less expensive by rolling out special deals, possibly weakening the appeal in Broomfield.

The clubs are moving ahead confidently, despite the obstacles. The Rocky Mountain Rage will spar with the Eagles, a successful hockey club that plays at the Budweiser Events Center in Loveland and recently recorded its 83rd consecutive sellout.

The teams already are battling off the ice. The Eagles argue that the new Broomfield CHL franchise about 40 miles away encroaches on their territory in northern Colorado. The case hasn't been resolved.

Frew and Wiens welcome the competition. A Colorado rivalry would be good for the sport, Frew said.

This is not the NBA or NHL. The two paid $125,000 for the CBA team and $1 million for the Central Hockey League franchise. And typically, it costs about $1 million a year to operate a CBA club and $3 million to run a CHL team, Frew said.

But the fact that this isn't the Nuggets or the Avalanche and the highest level of professional sports is part of the plan, Frew said.

"The purist will say it's unspoiled goods," he said. "These are kids playing for very little money. They are playing to get to the major-league level. They are here for one reason: to try to make it to the show."

Frew, the former director of the Grand Prix auto race in Denver and one-time head of Colorado Ski Country, and Wiens, a banker and developer, are not the only ones making bets on minor-league sports.

National Sports Services in Greenwood Village favors minor-league baseball and is behind an effort to put two teams in Aurora and Arvada to begin play in 2007.

The architects of the minor-league sports expansion say there is plenty of room to grow, yet critics worry Colorado can only accommodate so many teams.

The proliferation also makes it difficult to come up with names for new clubs. Wiens and Frew started with 360 possibilities. They pondered the Prairie Dogs, the Riverdogs, the Icepicks, the Nighthawks, the Jets, the Jackrabbits, the Groove, the Froth, the Flurry, the Gamblers. Even the Ice Posse.

They finally settled on the Rage and the 14ers. Adrenalin Inc., a Denver-based branding and marketing agency, designed the logos and jerseys.

"I've been through something like this twice in my life," Frew said. "And it was naming my two girls. Only this is more complicated because there are lawyers involved."

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