The Intrust Bank Arena management firm SMG must be wondering what it bit off in Wichita. Last night NBA professional basketball players put sneaker to floor in Wichita for the first time in 14 years, and only an estimated 8,000 fans showed up. (Estimate is by the Wichita Eagle.)
The game was held at the Charles Koch arena on the campus of Wichita State University. That arena has a capacity, according to the goshockers website, of 10,400.
Wichita downtown arena boosters told voters that if we passed the tax, we’d have lots of events like this, and lots of fans would attend. But in this trial run of big-time professional sports in Wichita, the fans that did attend would fill barely more than half of the new downtown Wichita arena.
Arena apologists are likely to come up with a variety of excuses for this embarrassingly poor turnout: It was only an exhibition game. It wasn’t at the downtown arena. It wasn’t the right teams. It was drizzling rain. There will always be excuses.
The citizens of Sedgwick County are going to have to hope that the Intrust Bank Arena can do a better job drawing fans. Even though the SMG contract puts that firm on the hook for losses, that contract has a lot of ways for SMG to wiggle out, even before its five year management term expires. Ultimately, it is the Sedgwick County taxpayer who is financially responsible for the arena, and it is they who must hope for success.