To dream-addled, merchandise-craving, broadcast license fee-lusting, red-faced sports arena fever victims: Just saying!
But trouble started almost from the day the doors of the Santa Ana Star Center opened in 2006. Global Entertainment, the company hired to build and manage the arena, failed to book enough events, and the minor league hockey team it recruited folded. Attendance was light because of high ticket prices and the arena’s remote location. Unrealistic sales targets and high turnover among the arena’s staff added to the problems. The arena — which Global Entertainment said would be profitable in a year — has lost so much money that Rio Rancho has had to spend millions of dollars each year to keep it afloat. The city fired Global Entertainment in 2009 and sued it to recoup hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid bills.
