Ohio State to Help Manage Nationwide Arena

According to The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio State and the Columbus Blue Jackets have agreed to a pact that will allow Ohio State to help manage Nationwide Arena in efforts to lower expenses for the financially troubled hockey franchise.

The one-year deal will keep bidding wars for concerts and other promotions from driving up expenses for both Nationwide Arena and Ohio State's Value City Arena.

In the past, the two arenas competed for the same concerts and in many instances, paid upwards of $200,000 just for hosting rights.

The deal will allow the Blue Jackets to save around $1 million dollars a year on operating expenses, but the club will still have cuts to make in order to operate in the black for the first time in franchise history.

In my opinion, this deal couldn't come at a better time for the Blue Jackets.  

Because Nationwide Insurance owns 90 percent of Nationwide Arena (The arena was privately funded after Columbus citizens voted down a tax increase to pay for the arena), they have charged the club around $5 million a year for rent and the use of a management company.
 

The Jackets are locked into a lease that causes them to bleed money and prevents the club from making advances towards productivity in Columbus.  

I believe that too many Columbusites take everything this team has provided the city for granted.

Before the Jackets, the current Arena District was nothing more than beaten buildings, ugly, unused properties, and a looming, distraught-looking state penitentiary.  The Jackets have brought life to the downtown that hasn't been seen in my time as a human being.

With the completion of the arena came LifeStyle Communities Pavilion in 2001, a state-of-the-art concert facility where I went to prom my junior and senior years (It was awesome).

In 2009, Huntington Park opened as the new home of the Columbus Clippers, the AAA affiliate to the Cleveland Indians.  The baseball stadium has won awards on many occasions and has added to the glow and beauty that has become the Arena District.

Many citizens vehemently oppose having to pay for the Jackets, and think that the club should move elsewhere if they cannot afford to stay in Columbus.

In all honesty, you folks are wrong.  If the Jackets do leave, you'll finally realize what they have been giving to our city for these past ten years.  They've made our downtown attractive again, and made downtown Columbus a destination, and not an eyesore.  They've made it safe.  They're bringing families to Columbus and its suburbs.

Not to mention, it's turning Columbus into a hockey town.  High school hockey has grown exponentially since the arrival of the Blue Jackets, and there are more kids in Columbus playing hockey than ever before.  

Those are the intangibles.  I challenge you, the citizens of my city, Columbus, to take a look inside and ask "How would our city look, and feel, without the presence of the Blue Jackets?"