Meet the new boss, same as the first boss.
When Scott Ackles departed the CEO post at ViaSport after the annual Athlete of the Year Awards in March, chairwoman Cathy Priestner Allinger took the job on an interim basis. She told BIV she would not be in the running for the permanent job. She was too busy consulting for the Russian Olympic Committee and organizing the 2014 Special Olympics Canada Summer Games in Vancouver.
“A perfect world would be to have someone from inside the province assume this responsibility,” Priestner Allinger said at the time. “I don’t think the individual has to come out of the sport world, but [he or she] needs to have a passion for sport and what it does for us as a society and has a vision for what we can achieve.”
Priestner Allinger helped form ViaSport as the BC Sport Agency, a spinoff of 2010 Legacies Now that is assuming many of the functions of Sport BC. She assumed the chair after Moray Keith left last fall and is the new, permanent CEO. It might not have been her first choice.
Allinger was on the shortlist to become the University of BC’s new athletics director, a job that went in late May to Ashley Howard, who came home to Vancouver after running Scottish Swimming.
Meanwhile, Caley Denton, who was VANOC’s vice-president of ticketing and consumer marketing, replaced Priestner Allinger as chair. After the Games, Denton became executive vice-president of marketing and operations for commercial developer Shape Properties.
Cross-Canada hoopla?
A Mississauga, Ontario, sports marketing agency wants to launch a Canadian basketball league in fall 2014.
Cosmos Sports and its president, Cary Kaplan, are inviting prospective franchise owners to a meeting in Edmonton in late July. Cosmos wants to have eight franchises begin play in the fall of 2014, with between six and nine Canadian players each. Teams would be subject to a $150,000 salary cap and a total $2 million-per-team budget.
“We’re looking for owners who have both the financial and marketing acumen to push this forward,” said Cosmos’ business development director Anthony Vella. “Groups or individuals that have the patience to see this through and people who have the basketball passion, of course.”
Travel costs make an east-west Canadian pro-sports circuit a tough proposition. The 1987-established Canadian Soccer League lasted five years. The Canadian baseball league lasted only one season in 2003. The Canadian basketball league would have a west division and a central division (for Ontario and Quebec), whose top teams wouldn’t meet until the final.
Revenue would be driven by sponsorship and ticket sales, Vella said.
Roar for 60
The BC Lions kick off their 60th season – and 30th at BC Place Stadium – on June 21 when the Edmonton Eskimos visit.
Coast Capital Savings replaces Scotiabank in the financial- services sponsorship category. Rona is gone, and no home- improvement replacement has been announced. The Lions are testing a $25 all-in, no-alcohol family zone with kid-friendly face painting and mascot visits in the southwest corner of Level 4. In the southeast corner of the upper deck, a $30 all-in adult-only zone with live bands and special food and drink menus.
The Lions are hoping to boost attendance after the 2011 Grey Cup win produced an underwhelming 2% rise last season. Taxpayer-owned landlord BC Pavilion Corp. (PavCo), meanwhile, continues to refuse to disclose how much the Lions pay to play in the renovated building.
If the past is a guide to the present, then the Lions are paying a small royalty on ticket sales while PavCo keeps food and beverage revenue.
The 2007 operating spreadsheet showed the Leos netted $7.34 million in exhibition and regular-season ticket sales when they drew 312,670 to BC Place. PavCo charged nothing for the first $6 million earned, but 10% for the next $1 million of sales ($100,000) and 15% of the next $1 million in sales ($51,646). The final regular-season bill was $160,744, including GST. •
