The Colorado Eagles minor-league hockey team Wednesday sued the developers of a proposed Broomfield event center to prevent a new hockey team from encroaching on its territory.
The league champion Eagles, who play at the Budweiser Events Center in Loveland, contend their license agreement prohibits any other team from using “advertising, marketing, selling (and) promoting” within 25 miles of the center, where the Eagles have had 71 straight sellouts.
“Our position is, we bought a 25-mile territory that can’t be infringed on,” said Martin Lind, chairman of the advisory board for the Eagles’ investor group.
It’s the latest shot fired in a legal battle over the Eagles’ franchise rights. Last week, the Central Hockey League filed a lawsuit against the Eagles in state court in Arizona, where the league has its headquarters.
The Eagles filed suit in Larimer County District Court against Broomfield Ice LLC and Wiens Frew Management Group LLC. It also filed a counterclaim in Arizona in response to the league’s filing.
A new team is not likely to have a big effect on Eagles’ ticket sales, but it would affect the team’s sponsors, Lind said.
“If Budweiser or Waste Management are marketing with us and an identical product comes in the same territory, they’re going to have to split (their budgets),” he said.
The lawsuit also could hurt the Broomfield developer’s ability to sell bonds to finance the project.
“We would assume, just like the Budweiser Events Center, that the pro forma fails without hockey,” Lind said. The league has “potentially quagmired a $400 million project,” he said.
The league has granted an expansion franchise to Broomfield contingent on the City Council’s approval of a 6,000-seat arena and surrounding 206-acre residential, retail and office development. The council is scheduled to take a final vote next week.
“There’s a symbiotic relationship between the need to build the arena between a particular time frame and the ability for the two sports franchises to open and operate for a full season,” Broomfield planning director Terry Ware said.
The new team would begin play next year, about 40 miles from the Eagles’ home ice.
It would be co-owned by John Frew, former Grand Prix of Denver general manager, and developer and investor Tim Wiens. Frew and Wiens could not be reached for comment.
Eagles co-owner and General Manager Ralph Backstrom said the defined territory he bought for the Eagles in 2001 blankets much of the Broomfield market, while the market area that the CHL sold to Broomfield investors stretches to Loveland.
“The overlapping territories in the long term means that some of our market will be cannibalized,” Eagles coach Chris Stewart said.
The league contends that the Eagles’ protected franchise territory means only that another arena cannot be located within the 25-mile radius.
