Cheesehead Alert!

We are very concerned about Bulls' GM Mike Birling. He took his family to the Super Bowl, but tweets and Facebook postings have been sparse...and he's normally pretty chatty on social media. He has disappeared from the grid!??!

Mike's kids made a fleeting in-the-background appearance on the Fox pre-game show, but his only Facebook post came at about 11pm Sunday via his Blackberry:

"Tears falling down my face."

That's the last anyone heard from him. I assume that he has entered some sort of cheesehead nirvana that can be truly appreciated only by Wisconsin natives.

His Packer loyalty was certainly rewarded last night...his post-Favre depression resolved. He went to Dallas without tickets. A compulsion. A pilgrimage. (No one in our company could nab seats for him, and we have pretty good connections. It was very humbling.) But Mike went anyway, and we believe that he did get into the stadium...only rumors, though...no confirmation.

Mike, let us hear from you!?! Send a tweet. Post a photo. Please!

(That is not Mike in the photo.)

Downtown Durham - the Entertainment District

The Lion King was a tremendous success at the Durham Performing Arts Center. GM Bob Klaus tells me that 81,000 patrons attended 28 sell-out performances in January. Lion King in Durham was the most successful return engagement of a Broadway show in the history of Triangle theater!

In the true spirit of baseball, I have more stats…

The DPAC released its attendance results for 2010 in early January. 307,000 visitors for concerts, Broadway shows and other events. A total of 151 performances. 59 were sellouts. (Read the full story in the Herald-Sun; click here.)

The theater has been a game-changer for downtown Durham. Our company is a founding sponsor. We’re proud of the DPAC’s success and how our neighbor compliments the Durham Bulls Athletic Park.

In 2011 the DPAC and the DBAP will hold over 250 events attracting close to 700 thousand patrons.

Here’s how things are likely to shake out…

DPAC events: 100 theater performances, 5-10 comedy shows, 10-15 family shows, 15-25 concerts, 20 American Dance Festival performances, 1-5 special events.

DBAP events: 18 Duke Baseball games, 13 ACC Baseball Tournament games, 72 Bulls regular season games, 2-4 USA Baseball Games, 10-15 special events.

On top of the theater and ballpark events, the American Tobacco campus is likely to host four or more festival-type events.

My first season with the Bulls was 2000, and we played our regular season and play-off games. A decade later we have a 230% increase in downtown events!


Recent DPAC story: Top Ten Theaters in US! (from Triangle Business Journal)

Next up at the ballpark: Duke Baseball commences on March 4th vs. LaSalle.

NHL All-Star Finale

Southern hospitality triumphs yet again!

On Sunday evening, hockey fans across Canada heard TSN analyst Pierre McGuire, stationed outside the RBC Center, say this was the best All-Star weekend ever...fantastic...a credit to the people of NC and Raleigh...to their spirit. He's been attending the event since 1990, he's Canadian and he's an expert. I would like to give him the final word, but...

Michael Farber, writing for SI.com, put this bow on the weekend:

...the clear winner was Raleigh, which reinforced its position as a most prominent, if not model, Sun Belt franchise.

Read his column. (While Farber is complimentary, he has an objective view of the local sports landscape.)

The Canadian wrap-up

wralSPORTSfan.com's wrap-up

Y'all come again...soon!

All-Star Update

Capitol Broadcasting - tv, radio, web, mobile - has promoted the dickens out of this event, but I have to admit that I was surprised (and relieved) at the crowd on Friday as the festivities began.

12,000 people were in the Raleigh convention center for the Fan Fair. An NHL staffer said that was a record for opening day. Meanwhile, Fayetteville St. and City Plaza were packed with people for the All-Star Wide Open outdoor activities.

I like the story Carolina Hurricanes owner Pete Karmanos was telling yesterday: the Triangle is no longer to be considered a non-traditional hockey market. The Canes have won the Stanley Cup, the NHL draft was here and now our community is hosting the All-Star Game. That's as traditional as it gets!

Here's a recap from WRAL TV5...

Keep up with the All-Star weekend buzz:

wral.com

wralsportsfan.com

Go Figure: World Class Skating in Greensboro

Gotta man up and confess: I attended the US Figure Skating Championships at the Greensboro Coliseum yesterday, the pairs short program and the ladies short program.

I have witnessed a flying camel, twizzle, rocker...even a hydroblade. I know all of this thanks to a little radio I purchased in the arena. It provided technical commentary on the skating...priceless! And that knowledge helped me overcome costume bias, ie, if I don't like your outfit (or music for that matter) then I can't appreciate your skating.

Did you know those skimpy costumes cost $700 and up? Ditto for custom skates.


The Question...from a column by Ed Hardin in the Greensboro News & Record: "The effort to bring the skating championships here was long and arduous, and there are those who still question the decision to bring them to the South in general, much less Greensboro, N.C."

The Answer...from David Raith, Executive Director of US Figure Skating: "The layout and the venue have been very good, and the local support has been excellent and the marketing has been good, which has been reflected in ticket sales."

The Answer...from Gold Medalist Scott Hamilton: "I'm surprised it hasn't hosted before. I've performed here a lot when I was touring with Stars on Ice, and I just assumed it had already been here. Being in the South really isn't strange."

Congratulations to Greensboro...and to Raleigh sports marketer Hill Carrow who led the effort to land the big event. Also, Durham-based NC Amateur Sports is managing the FanFest. As always...it's a regional effort.

Now, it's on to the NHL All-Star weekend in Raleigh...blades of glory across NC!!!

Colin Firth...on a roll!

Actor Colin Firth won a Golden Globe last week for The King’s Speech and seems to be a shoe-in for an Academy Award. The film received twelve Oscar nominations Tuesday.

We’re big fans-o-Firth. He was here in Durham in the spring of 2009 filming the movie Main Street. His family made a couple of trips to the ballpark, and they made a very good impression. Thoughtful, gracious folks with two impeccably behaved little boys. Firth seems like a guy who's committed to his craft, not to the trappings of show biz.

Given Firth's current success, it dawned on me that Main Street has not found its way into theaters. What happened to it?

It had a strong cast: Orlando Bloom, Ellen Burstyn, Amber Tamblyn. It was written by two-time Academy Award winner Horton Foote, a final project before his 2009 death.


Main Street premiered at an Austin film festival last fall...didn’t seem to get any traction. Here’s a not-so-good review.

Meanwhile, Main Street is in the Netflix catalog as a pending DVD release. I’m waiting to put it in my queue...

Excitement 'round the Rays

I'm psyched about the anticipated signings of Johnny Damon and Manny Ramirez. It's been a hard, hard winter in St. Pete as the Rays' do Extreme Makeover: the Payroll Reduction Edition. Now, hope springs eternal!

Check out the full story in the St. Pete Times, click here.


My favorite quote from the weekend chatter...

Eric Ortiz, NESN: Putting Damon and Manny in Rays uniforms adds a whole new level of intrigue to the East. Maybe that’s part of Scott Boras' master plan to conquer the world. Maybe Tampa Bay was the only team willing to pay each veteran more than the league minimum. Whatever the reason, Damon and Manny are back in the Beast. They will be coming to Fenway Park nine times in 2011 and playing the Red Sox 18 games. They will be stopping by Yankee Stadium nine times and facing the Yankees 18 games. They will be making trips to Baltimore and Toronto. Joe Maddon isn’t complaining. Neither is Bud Selig. The former Red Sox stars are smart pickups for the Rays. They might be past their "Cowboy Up" days, but at the very least, Damon and Manny will put fans in the seats at Tropicana Field. (from The Heater blog)

Other weekend highlights:

The Bulls held a job fair Saturday for seasonal positions at the DBAP. I'm very much aware of the unemployment stats, but still, we were surprised at the interest in these part-time jobs. 250 people attended...got pretty crowded. It was an older-than-usual group, too. We have about 100 seasonal jobs on our Hospitality Team, however, most of them are filled by returning employees.

A neighbor had taken her kids to The Lion King at the Durham Performing Arts Center. It's a fantastic show, but as they passed the ballpark and the famous snorting bull, the young uns wanted to know when they could go to a Bulls game. That warms my heart! (The answer, of course: Opening Day is April 14th.)