Venues wrestle with booking

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By Eddie Pells ASSOCIATED PRESS

DENVER | The soothing sounds of Yanni and the chair-breaking chaos of pro wrestling have this much in common - they put bodies in the seats, money in the register and have caused the NHL and NBA a couple of headaches this playoff season.

They also remind that while teams like the Denver Nuggets and Pittsburgh Penguins play for cups and rings and trophies, the bottom line at their arenas - and most arenas - is still the bottom line.

"The facility is just as important - or in some cases more important - than the franchise itself," said Wayne McDonnell, a professor at the New York University Tisch Center who used to handle scheduling logistics at Madison Square Garden.

Which is one way to explain how the Penguins recently found themselves getting iced by Yanni and the Nuggets currently find themselves in a smackdown with Vince McMahon, the chairman of World Wrestling Entertainment.

The company that owns the Nuggets had to scrub next week's WWE "Monday Night Raw" wrestling date at Pepsi Center to make way for Game 4 of the Western Conference finals against the Lakers.

Earlier this month, a Yanni concert scheduled for Mellon Arena in Pittsburgh - along with a number of other events, including WWE - forced the Penguins and Washington Capitals to play playoff games on back-to-back nights, first in Pittsburgh, then in the District.

The Nuggets, Colorado Avalanche and Pepsi Center are all owned by the same company. Squeezing every penny out of that building through ticket sales, concessions, parking, luxury suites and souvenirs for all events - even those not involving the primary tenants - helps pay the multimillion-dollar salaries that keep the teams in business.

Though the Penguins and Mellon Arena aren't co-owned, the bottom line is basically the same: A building that hosts an event normally makes somewhere between $100,000 and $500,000, and nobody wants to give up that kind of cash. That's especially true in Pittsburgh, where the arena is nearly 50 years old and doesn't draw as many top events as the newer buildings.

"Underutilizing the facility can be a detriment to the organization in the long run," McDonnell said.

McDonnell said sloppy clerical work and the never-ending quest to make money were the most likely reasons for the double bookings. Most arenas have schedules and calendars and contingency plans in place months and years in advance.