by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
When Mayor John Delaney and Jacksonville Suns owner and general manager Peter Bragan Jr., shook hands on the Suns’ next lease with the City a few years, Bragan walked away knowing his rent would be a little more but the rest of the agreement would virtually mirror the current deal.
Times have changed and the proposed lease has also changed, much to the displeasure of Bragan. However, those changes are centered on one major facet: a brand new $25 million park.
While Bragan has retained legal counsel to help him through the negotiations, the City admits that, yes, the new deal is very different, but everything in it is negotiable and Better Jacksonville Plan officials want nothing more than a happy Bragan and the Suns opening the 2003 season in the new park.
According to Bragan, owner and general manager of the Jacksonville Suns, he and his father, Peter Sr., met with Delaney a few years ago to discuss his team’s next lease with the City.
At the heart of the matter for Bragan is his ability to retain control of the concession and billboard sales at the new park. While Bragan admits the new park will help at the ticket window for at least the first season, the financial soul of many minor league baseball clubs —the Suns are the Double A affiliate of the Los Angeles Dodgers — is revenue from concessions and being able to sell outfield ads.
With a new baseball park coming out of the ground and opening day in the new park less than a year away, the Bragans and the City are once again negotiating the terms of the Suns’ new lease. Much to his chagrin, it appears the deal Bragan talked about with Delaney as it pertained to the old facility is a distant memory.
After spending the better part of 20 years dealing with the City on a personal basis, Bragan has hired an Atlanta-based attorney to handle the negotiations.
“It’s going, I guess, real slow,” said Bragan of the negotiating process. “We had a meeting a month or so ago with the City and I had to bring in a lawyer from Atlanta, one with more experience with these kinds of things. We know what we want and that is something similar to what we have now. We knew we would have to pay more, but the City has prepared something drastically different.”
Sam Mousa, the City’s chief administrative officer, said the City did present a deal to Bragan that differed from what Bragan originally thought he was getting. However, Mousa added that every aspect of the new lease is still negotiable and he’s eager to come to an agreement with the Bragans as soon as possible so the City can concentrate on having the park ready for opening day next year.
“Our people are in negotiations with their people,” said Mousa. “We’d like to get it done as soon as possible. I can tell you everything is negotiable. We don’t want to hurt the Bragans at all.”
The fact that Bragan has retained the services of Steven Labovitz of Long, Aldridge & Norman, LLP, isn’t much of an issue. What gets to Bragan more than anything is the City’s apparent decision to renege on an oral agreement he had with Delaney.
“The biggest thing so far is the mayor told me and my daddy in his office that maybe we would have to pay a little more, but we could keep everything else,” said Bragan. “That was long before the Better Jacksonville Plan and new ballpark and coliseum were even talked about. The new lease is nothing like what the mayor said we’d get.”
The last thing Bragan wants to see is a food service selling hot dogs and someone from the City beating the streets for corporate advertising — while the revenue from both goes everywhere but his operating budget. Bragan believes strongly that losing control of those entities will eventually hurt his ticket sales.
“They want to run the food and beverage and sell the signs,” said Bragan. “Those are things fairly normal to the baseball clubs. If the City runs the food, they’ll give it to someone like SMG [the company that manages the facilities at the sports complex] or Volume Services [the company that handles Jaguars games].
“They also say they want to sell the signs. Nobody ever wanted to sell the signs at this old building.”
Mousa, who is in charge of the $2.2 billion Better Jacksonville Plan, said there are still several items of contention outside of concessions and advertising, including parking. He also firmly believes that an agreement amicable to all will be reached soon.
“I think everybody will eventually shake hands and walk away smiling,” said Mousa. “There are a lot of issues to be worked out, most of which I think can be negotiated to the satisfaction of both sides.”
Bragan, too, hopes an agreement can be reached long before the 2003 season starts. However, he remains adamant about keeping two of his primary sources of revenue. The last thing Bragan wants is to consider not playing in the new park. As much as anything, Bragan stressed that he’s not getting rich owning a minor league baseball team and losing any source of revenue could be devastating, especially considering the Dodgers provide little beyond the players necessary to field a team.
“Hopefully, we won’t get to a situation where we won’t play there,” said Bragan. “The City doesn’t want an empty ballpark. But, I’ll play on a field in Mandarin or in a cow pasture before I agree to this lease. We ain’t toting money away from here in wheelbarrows. Some years, it’s a struggle just to make it.”