Metro-area tournaments soon could be feeling the squeeze

This week marks the beginning of an annual Minnesota ritual: high school state tournaments. From now until late March, athletes and teams will see their dreams come true, as they compete on the big stage.

But that stage could become smaller in a few years, for reasons that have nothing to do with sports and everything to do with business. Because of increasing fees for using Xcel Energy Center, Target Center and facilities at the University of Minnesota, the Minnesota State High School League will have to make some hard decisions about the future of the winter state tournaments.

Imagine if the state wrestling tournament were moved to Rochester or Mankato. Or if the state basketball tournaments were divided by classes and held at four sites, some in the Twin Cities, some outstate -- and none of them were televised. Think about the boys' state hockey tournament -- the biggest draw of them all and one of the top high school events in the nation -- being moved out of Xcel because that state-of-the-art venue became unaffordable.

Those are worst-case scenarios, but the MSHSL is taking a serious look at what the future might hold. The challenge is twofold, MSHSL executive director Dave Stead said.

"How can we continue to use good facilities for our kids so they have a great experience, and at the same time try to do so in a facility that is as inexpensive as it possibly can be for us?" he asked.

Here are some examples of the rising costs:

• The fee to use Xcel Energy Center for the boys' state hockey tournament was slightly more than $293,000 in 2004. It was more than $369,000 last year and is estimated to be more than $481,000 in 2013.

• For boys' basketball at Target Center, the fee was nearly $160,000 in 2004, almost $170,000 a year ago, and is expected to be $203,000 for 2013.

No one is accusing the venues of gouging high school sports. It's simply a case of tournament sites having rising costs, which are passed on to the customer. And the customer is the MSHSL.

"It's staffing and everything that goes into it," said Jack Larson, vice president and general manager of Xcel Energy Center. "We love having the tournaments here and we work with the high school league to try and keep expenses to a minimum. But obviously prices go up, like with everything else."

Venue managers said another factor is how much money fans spend -- or don't spend -- at state tournaments.

"The other ancillaries that come from, say, a concert are just typically not available," said Steve Madsen, Target Center vice president and general manager. "Food and beverage from a high school tournament is going to be probably less than half of a Wolves game, and there's not revenue from the suites."

The fees at the university, which plays host to early-round basketball games and consolation hockey, are considerably lower than at Xcel or Target Center

The high school league pays a flat rental fee for each tournament, plus an additional amount (called a facility fee) for every ticket sold. The facility fee is $2 per ticket at Xcel and Target Center, but may increase to $2.25 at Target Center beginning in 2012 and to $2.50 at Xcel beginning in 2011.

"If we have 100,000 people at the hockey tournament and they increase the facility fee by 50 cents, that's not very much money per person, but it's $50,000 that comes out of the money we use to reimburse schools and run our programs," the MSHSL's Stead said.

The MSHSL -- a nonprofit association that receives no state funding -- has contracts through 2013 with the Xcel Center, Target Center and the University of Minnesota, and with KSTC-TV (Ch. 45) through 2014 for coverage of the hockey and basketball tournaments, as well as the football Prep Bowl every November.

But if no solutions can be found and those contracts expire, that's when the tournaments could go elsewhere.

Ken Novak Jr., who coached boys' basketball teams at Blaine and Hopkins to nine state tournaments since 1987, said if those events were moved out of the metro, "It would be too bad."

"It's a central location. And out of the 64 teams in Class 4A, I'm guessing 56 are probably in the metro," he said. "So now you're sending the whole fan base away.

"I don't know if people are trying to make money or what, but no one's making money off high school basketball -- or off high school sports, period. Hopefully they would cut them a break. I'd hate to see it. State tournaments have already gotten much more low-key than they used to be."

The MSHSL surveyed representatives of its member schools last fall, offering three possible ways to help offset the rising costs of state tournaments:

• Increase the membership fees paid by schools. They currently pay a $100 yearly MSHSL membership fee and $90 for every activity they sponsor. Raising the activity fee to $100 would generate an additional $100,000 per year.

• Increase ticket prices for state tournaments. That could bring in an extra $500,000 per year.

• Reduce or eliminate the reimbursements given to schools that incur the expense of travel and lodging when their teams play in state tournaments. That could save $600,000 per year.

The responses were ambiguous: 159 school representatives preferred increased activity fees, 137 voted for higher ticket prices and 114 preferred decreasing or eliminating state tourney reimbursements.

The only certainty is that there are no easy answers.

"When Mom and Dad come in from Crookston or from Fosston, they don't just drive up, turn the car off and walk in [to a state tournament]," Stead said. "It costs them to park, for the hotel and all those things, and then the ticket prices are on top of that. So we try to keep the ticket prices down as low as possible.

"The bottom line is, how can we put all the pieces together?"