Talk about risk. Many in the sports industry thought New Jersey Devils owner Jeff Vanderbeek was nuts when he picked downtown Newark to build the NHL team’s new $375 million arena.
The New Jersey Devils saw opportunity in Newark when others thought it was a big mistake to relocate their new arena in the inner city.
There was no way, naysayers said, that suburban hockey fans would travel deep into the heart of a city plagued by high crime rates, despite six highways and two major rail lines linking to Prudential Center.
The attendance numbers proved otherwise, turning risk into reward for Vanderbeek. The Devils drew an average of 15,564 per home game in their new home, a 10 percent increase over the previous season when the team played at the Meadowlands’ Izod Center.
The nonbelievers discounted the significance of the thousands of rail commuters passing by the building every day to and from work in New York City. During the last two months of the season, 53 percent of hockey fans used mass transit to get to Prudential Center.
“They just didn’t stop before,” said Dale Adams, AEG’s general manager in Newark. “Now, there’s a reason to come here and it’s due to the location. This is the hub of New Jersey, with 10 million people and another 10 million in New York. It’s so easy to get here from the city.”
Vanderbeek made another smart move, hiring AEG to operate and book the arena, guaranteeing stops on the national tours AEG Live promotes. Since it opened Oct. 27, Prudential Center has played host to 1.1 million patrons.
“In terms of content, I believe the building has gotten more than its share in what has been a lean year,” said Rich Krezwick, a veteran arena manager with AEG.
The building’s layout and premium areas impress Comcast-Spectacor President Peter Luukko, whose company owns and operates Wachovia Center in Philadelphia, a one-hour train ride from Newark. “The Fire and [Belvedere] Ice lounges are a nice new twist to the club box concept that many arenas are using,” Luukko said.
As Krezwick summed it up: “The customer experience is second to none.”
