This will not have a negative impact on the County Fair. In fact, this investment will spark a needed revitalization of the facilities at the Lane Events Center, providing improved facilities year round, including the new stadium as a concert venue. The Ems and MLB will plan to coordinate our game schedule to not overlap with the fair.

The return to the community falls into a number of categories.  A multi-use sports and entertainment venue brings a high volume and consistent flow of people as well as valuable views and a sense of place. This helps attract development, which adds to the tax base. According to a study by ECONorthwest, the new stadium will generate significant economic benefits for Lane County. The construction of the stadium alone is expected to infuse $75.90 million in economic output and create over 500 full-year equivalent jobs. Once operational, the stadium will attract baseball fans and concertgoers revitalizing the Lane Events center and injecting an estimated $31.68 million in economic output and supporting nearly 300 full-year equivalent jobs annually.

Additionally, we’ve seen ballparks across the country get used for more than baseball. In the past decade, Fort Wayne, IN; Columbia, SC; Birmingham, AL; Durham, NC; Amarillo, TX; El Paso, TX and Kannapolis, NC have all demonstrated the strong community benefit of a new stadium. For our community, this also provides the opportunity for us to leverage significant state, federal, and private dollars to create a seismically sound facility to assist in emergency response, and to spark improvements in the Lane Events Center in the heart of Eugene.

This facility will allow for a wide range of programming, with the non-baseball event planning done in collaboration with the Lane Events Center. A comparable example is in Fort Wayne, Indiana that has a population of 265,974. Their Minor League team are the Fort Wayne Tincaps. Over the past decade, the Tincaps averaged 399,938 fans each season. Additionally, they averaged 126,291 additional fans to non-baseball events with an average of 612 events each year. The events range from concerts, organized runs, high school athletic programs such as soccer, football and baseball; holiday light shows and events, car shows, youth batting cage practice, Oktoberfest events, high school graduations, scout sleepovers, orchestra nights, yoga events on the field, and charitable fundraisers. All of these events are planned for the new stadium.

With the addition of the new stadium, the Lane Events Center would be the largest outdoor entertainment venue on the I-5 corridor between Portland and Sacramento. This would fill the gap of hosting between 10,000 and 12,000 people. In Eugene, the Cuthbert has a maximum capacity of around 5,000, the indoor Hult Center holds about 3,700 and the indoor Matthew Knight Arena holds about 10,000 for concerts. There are several examples of concert opportunities that have been turned away because of the lack of larger outdoor venues.

The concept for operations is a collaborative one. The Ems would be an anchor tenant in the multi-use stadium and a catalyst for the larger campus. The vision is for year-around events to help keep that campus vibrant and to create an energy that invites more public and private investment in the campus. For the events that are beyond the baseball mission, the Ems would work closely with the staff at the Lane Events Center to leverage strengths and plan and book a broad range of events of interest to the community from concerts, to community gatherings, conventions, sports activities, fundraisers and more.

The Ems would operate the stadium for the term of the lease. Typically, leases work out to be about 30 years with additional options in 5 year increments. The Ems are offering to pay the lease up front to assist with construction. Leases generally stipulate a number of dates that the municipality can reserve to host their own events.

The ECONorthwest study identifies the anticipated economic impacts, including the spillover effects on the local lodging market. The new stadium’s ability to host a variety of events, including both Ems and non-Ems competitive baseball games and concerts, will draw visitors that translate to 20,771 more hotel room nights and more than $4.1 million in hotel revenues within our region.

We pride ourselves on being an affordable evening for families in Lane County. We provide a variety of options with special program vouchers, Thirsty Thursday and discounted theme nights throughout the season. The Emeralds rank as the 77^th most expensive ticket in the nation out of 120 teams. In the A+ Category which total 30 teams, the Ems are the 21^st most expensive ticket. Our average ticket for the season is $10.47. The most expensive is the Hillsboro Hops at $20.36. We expect our ticket pricing to go up slightly to average about $12 which would place us in the middle of the pack.

There are a total of 132 games: 66 home and 66 away, expecting an average of 4 rainouts a year. The season starts in Early April and ends in Mid-September.

The venue will enhance current shows, and we expect they will want to use this new facility. With access to a covered concourse, high definition sound and use of a giant video board the new stadium will be a popular new addition to the fairgrounds. And, based on experience in other communities we expect a variety of new and expanded events. One example is the programming at the new Kannapolis dog race shown here: https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/757606042

The team will schedule to be on the road for 2 weeks before the fair and 1 week after so that the fair can maximize their use of the Lane Events Center, hosting concerts inside the stadium and placing vendors along the concourse. We can easily accommodate the County Fair. Scheduling of other events will be done collaboratively based on the size and needs of other events and the home game schedule.

The County is currently exploring a variety of options for the livestock building and its relatively minimal usage throughout the year. 

The Ems have been in Eugene for 70 years–we aren’t going anywhere.  And, the contract with Lane County will include clear financial penalties that will kick-in if the team leaves or the league dissolves.  

Almost every team in the country is affected by this change from MLB. Most teams are remodeling or expanding current facilities. A number of teams are negotiating new stadiums. Some examples on the west coast include Hillsboro, Everett, Eugene, Modesto and Visalia. Each community has some differences based on the regional economy, community size, and funding mix (for instance, we do not have a sales tax available to us).

We are encouraged that construction costs are stabilizing, and believe the design work to date has appropriately estimated costs for building the new facility. The team is using a Design Build Process which provides a Guaranteed Maximum Price (GMP), alleviating any concerns.

In terms of sponsorship funds, we have met with several potential sponsors who are interested and waiting for the final County decision to move forward before moving forward with contracting. The largest outstanding funding question is support from the City of Eugene.

We are hoping to have 80% of the $90.4M cost confirmed by September 2023.

Our budget calls for $10M to $15M from these investments. We currently have 4 large businesses with strong interest in securing naming rights to the facility, others for the field and concourse. These potential sponsors will remain anonymous until the final decision to proceed is made by Lane County and sponsorship contracts are finalized.

The facility will be a County asset, with the Ems contributing about $13.5M up front, in addition to leveraging the contracts for sponsors and naming rights. The Ems contribution includes $10M up front for a long-term lease, and about $3.5 up front in FF&E for the facilities expenses.

Our baseball business relies on three key anchors for income: tickets, sponsorships, and concessions. The balance of the business is centered in community-minded gatherings and sponsored fundraising for charity.           

Yes. Once built, the facility becomes available year-round for a variety of events, including both public and private. The revitalization of the Lane Events Center and surrounding community will also generate additional revenue growth with expanded restaurant, hotel, and other business activity in the area.

The new stadium is a great opportunity for our whole community, sparking much needed economic revitalization of the Lane Events Center and the surrounding area of Eugene. The impacts go well beyond baseball, and our hope is that the business community will partner with us in advocating for the new facility at the Lane Events Center. The business community is uniquely positioned to describe the importance of investing in economic development that will be a people-generator into downtown and the corridor west to the University. Communicating the value of this investment and the positive community impact of this economic opportunity will be critical in helping policy makers in Eugene and Lane County feel confident in continuing to support this effort. The whole community will benefit from this facility and related development, and we look forward to working collectively with our business community.