Eye Of The Storm: Tech Woes Hurts Hurricanes More Than Most

The "slumping" economy in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area "could end up hurting" the Hurricanes' "bottom line," according to Luke DeCock of the Raleigh NEWS & OBSERVER, who notes NHL teams that "have the most to lose" from the slowdown are the ones in "tech-heavy markets" like the Hurricanes and Senators. Univ. of OR Warsaw Sports Marketing Center Dir Rick Burton: "The fallout from the dot-com collapse has caused a lot of leagues and companies to reconsider their investments and relationships. It's not necessarily a bad market, but there's not a lot of money out there, especially in sectors that have been volatile." However, Hurricanes execs said that Nortel Networks "signed an advertising deal with the team for the '01-02 season." Hurricanes President Jim Cain: "The slowdowns at Cisco and Nortel and IBM, they're something we watch closely. Most of those companies are suiteholders and corporate advertisers. We know we'll have challenges next season if the economy and these industries don't pick up." DeCock notes the economy is "casting a shadow over" the team's "quest to sell naming rights" to the Entertainment & Sports Arena, and has ended the team's relationship with Midway Airlines, which planned to put its name on a new sports bar in the arena before filing for bankruptcy August 13 (NEWS & OBSERVER, 8/21).

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