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Special Committee on Baseball/Civic Center - 09-01-26 Special BB MIN

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SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON BASEBALL/CIVIC CENTER 
September 1, 2026 at 5:00 PM 
 
Chairman O’Neil called the meeting to order. 
  
 
The Clerk called the roll. 
 
Present: 
Aldermen O’Neil, Barry, Goonan, Vincent, Dexter 
 
Messrs.: 
Alderman Bonilla, Alderman Trisciani, B. Stefansson, E. Sweeney 
  
 
1. 
Discussion with the SNHU Arena management team regarding upcoming shows, 
staffing, and related topics. 
 
Chairman O'Neil: I'd like to call our guests up. As they're making their way up, I say this 
sincerely, our friends. And although there might be some tough questions and comments 
tonight, having got to know both Erin and Brett over the past nine months or so, they're 
good people. And as much as I want to take everything out on them, there were decisions 
made before they even got to Global. There were decisions made way above them. So 
please keep that in mind when we're talking. I mean, we hope to have an honest 
discussion tonight, but they're both great people. Bill and I first met Brett, he coached 
baseball and likes fishing. Erin comes from a legacy family in Keene. And when you talk 
to Keene people, they know all about Erin's family. So they're fine people. They're doing 
the best they can with the cards that are dealt them. 
 
Brett Stefansson, Regional Vice President of Legends Global: Thank you. I appreciate 
the time today. I am overseeing the northeast. And so I'm fairly new to this account; I was 
introduced to this group, I guess going back now for 4 or 5 months ago. 
 
Erin Sweeney, SNHU Arena General Manager: I arrived here in April 2026. I am finishing 
my fifth month here this week. 
 
B. Stefansson: So, we had submitted some information in advance that we had that we 
had supplied to the committee. Happy to run through that if we want to do that, or if you 
want to roll right into questions. 
 
Chairman O'Neil: Go ahead and just go over what you sent to the committee. 
 
B. Stefansson: So, the purpose was really just to provide a high level update as it relates 
to Legends Global and the recent merger, which is going on almost two years now, 
between Legends Global and ASM, and then also give an overview of current state of 
affairs as it relates to content specifically at SNHU. And so I'll go ahead and start just 
holistically about Legends Global and our management of venues in North America. And 
on the first page, it just gives you a general snapshot holistically of the total amount of 
arenas across North America that we manage. There's over 60 buildings across North 
America. A majority of those are publicly owned, and a majority of those we report directly 

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to the university or government agency in charge of overseeing the day to day. With that, 
over 30 of those facilities are 10,000 seats or less. And I say that because as Legends 
Global continues to grow, we are hyper focused on our bread and butter, which is 
essentially that small market venue. That's a holistic overview of really just, I would say 
venues across North America. Later on, I'll get into some details related to specifically 
how we're using the power of the network to drive content to buildings. But I'll let Erin go 
ahead and get into some of the current updates as it relates to SNHU. 
 
E. Sweeney: On page three, basically we're giving you the last 3 to 4 years of event 
history to provide perspective. So if you look in black for all events, this is only ticketed 
events, we've done 24 events or because this does include Jonas Brothers coming up 
comparatively to the last few years, if you look in fiscal year 23, we did 19; fiscal year 24, 
we did 20; fiscal year 25, we did 29. We are in line with the three year average. The three 
year average is 23 ticketed events a year. And then specific to concerts, we're at 11 
concerts this year compared to 10 in fiscal year 23; 9 fiscal year 24; and 13 in fiscal year 
25. Our average pace is 11 in the last three years. So we're trending with that pace 
comparatively year over year. For page four, we wanted to give you a glimpse of our 
market position. And by this I mean a view of the industry as a whole for event content. 
And this is specific event content. So the far right chart was meant to give you perspective 
of overall touring trends in the touring market, if you look it is down in 2026. Why is this 
relevant? That means the events that we're trying to grab and get to our building, 
comparative to the other facilities across North America, more specifically in New 
England, we're fighting for those particular events. So if you look at 2024, there were 
4,200 ticket events across North America; 2025, 3000; 2026, 1100. We then provide you 
with a scope of how we compare regionally to other facilities of our size in the northeast. 
We do leave TD garden out of this because TD garden is twice our size, so we wanted to 
compare it to arenas that are similar size to us. So if you look at the 20%, that's 20% of 
the market, which is really good with MVP right ahead of us at 23%. The middle graph we 
just provided for perspective. That's pace compared to three year average. And it's really 
just event space. So you can see comparable arenas on how we're trending. The point of 
this information is North America content is down, but we’re still competitive within the 
northeast market share. We wanted to provide scope on where we're at as far as what 
events we have on sale, which is Jonas Brothers, PBR, Disney on Ice, and Rock 
Orchestra. If you haven't seen Rock Orchestra, I suggest seeing it. It's a pretty good show. 
Not many people in the northeast have seen it yet. It's coming in March, but I digress. So 
we do have two events that are already booked, and we just can't say what they are for 
September, meaning they're going to be announced and go on sale in September. We 
have two events that we can't share yet that are going to be announced and on sale in 
October. The chart on the left, we wanted to provide the pipeline of what we're doing 
behind the scenes and why this is relevant. This is what we're working on, which we don't 
talk about. So what are we putting for holds on the calendar? What is a hold? When we 
reach out to promoters and agents, we're basically trying to get content, whether it be 
national touring acts, local touring acts. Are they one off shows? And these are the current 

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holds we have on our calendar. So the left side of the chart, just to compare what you're 
looking at, is total holds. So we have 18 holds. That's 18 events across our calendar. And 
then concerts specifically is 11. And then Live Nation specifically is seven. I say Live 
Nation because most people know what Live Nation is. So when we're speaking about it, 
we wanted to bring that up compared to other promoters that we might be working with. 
The non-black part of this chart is compared to where we're at for last year. So why is that 
relevant? Basically what that means is this time last year, so we were in August 2025 or 
September 2025. For 2026, we had 14 holds on the calendar. So we're actually trending 
ahead. So why we show this, it is the legwork that we're putting in behind the scenes to 
try to book content and get content into the facility. 
 
B. Stefansson: Moving into the final update, which will really just be some enterprise deals 
that we've recently negotiated. We talk a lot about the power of the network. And when 
you partner with Legends Global you get the full power of Legends Global and with that, 
we've been able to recently solidify enterprise partnership deals with promoters. And what 
does that mean? That means that we have created incentive deals with both Live Nation, 
AEG, Outback and Live Co to drive content to our buildings. And the benefit that we have 
in partnering with those groups is that we have the facilities in which they can put content 
in. And so while those are new and I don't have a lot of stats and facts behind this we 
believe that those enterprise content deals will drive more events in the coming years, not 
only for SNHU but for buildings across our entire portfolio. A couple examples just recently 
that we're currently looking at, Erin mentioned the holds. We've got seven holds for Live 
Nation currently next year on the books. This time last year we only had two. We've got 
two holds for Outback. Last year we had none. And I think that's a representation of both 
the work Erin's doing and the work that the enterprise deal is bringing to the table for us. 
Another enterprise deal that we recently announced was our partnership with 
Ticketmaster and Access. And so we have been able to again, leverage the power of the 
network to renegotiate our fair share of facility fees and what percentage comes back to 
SNHU. And so as an example, our new Ticketmaster deal, if applied over 22, 23, and 24 
years, would have garnered an additional $1.5 million to the facility. And so as we look 
forward in regards to that, that new Ticketmaster and Access deal will pay dividends for 
SNHU. And then the last piece in the last page that we'll cover is really just overall how 
we're performing from a fan's perspective. And so we take significant amount of data and 
feedback from surveys post event. And you can see, and folks in the business community 
deal typically in NPS scores, net promoter scores, which is how likely are you to 
recommend SNHU to a friend, 40 is our NPS score. That is significantly higher than our 
average across our portfolio, and an excellent NPS score as a whole, 88% positive guest 
satisfaction. And so I would say Erin and her team are doing an absolutely incredible job 
as it relates to service to the community in this space. Again, we just had put together 
high level information to share out with the group, to start to provide some information to 
talk about. Nothing in particular that was asked for us. We just thought it would be helpful. 
 

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Chairman O'Neil: First comment is going to be shows. We need shows. That's what's 
going on in the community. That's what's going on at City Hall. We need shows. 
Something that neither of you had anything to do with. You weren't even employed by the 
company. But, you know, we lost some great institutional knowledge with Tim Becker. He 
had, I don't know, 35 years in the business, 25 here. It's tough to replace when you've 
been in the business that long. And we're fortunate to have had Tim, the 25 years he was 
here. There is a concern by me with staffing. You've had some major losses from the 
security director to your director of marketing to the HR director and at the same time. 
When Tim retired or was let go, I recall a gentleman who was a pretty good finance officer 
that had a good relationship with our finance department. So I am concerned about the 
senior staffing losses and the impact. I'm going to guess there will probably be a comment 
or question about hockey. Erin and I have talked recently about this when I started to look 
back and ask for some records on what we did. I thought we had replaced two chillers 
there a number of years ago, kind of in an emergency action. We actually only replaced 
one, and at the same time we had to replace some piping that was failing underneath the 
penalty boxes that I recall. One of the things Erin and I talked about, maybe the committee 
can comment, Erin said there's going to be a group coming in to do a facility evaluation. 
And she believes they're going to do some review of the ice plant, but I think we really 
need to review what's the status of the ice plant. What I saw from the records, it wasn't in 
phase two of the most recent facilities plan that we had funded the first phase, which was 
the messaging boards, which is significant. There were a bunch of other projects, but we 
really need to see what's the status of the ice plant. We're fortunate that the building hosts 
back to back a Saturday and a Sunday, the high school hockey championships. And we 
have people from all over the state here, which is great. The very next day is the Chad 
hockey game, which is great. I don't know why I recall something about Disney on Ice 
brings in their own plant or something or some supporting system. I can't say I've ever 
seen it, but that's what I've been told. So, but those are pretty much our ice related 
activities currently. My understanding is the NCAA has changed their structure for 
regional hockey tournaments. We were fortunate for many years to get every other year 
a regional hockey tournament, but they appear to want to be bringing them back on 
college campuses, college and university campuses. I think it would be good no matter 
what. You know, whether we have a hockey team in the future or don't, but to see if we 
could really dig down and get a get a review of the status of the ice plant and whether 
that happens. On this first phase, or do we got to bring SimCo in? You know, to see if 
they can help out identifying the chiller. I think from what I understand now, 25 years ago, 
whenever the arena was built, it was steel piping. Nowadays you do it in PVC, I believe. 
So, you know, the world has changed. 
 
Alderman Vincent: Erin, you've been here about five months now. So you've seen now 
you've kind of got your foot in the door. What's your priority right now? What would you 
put as your number one priority to try to get us more face time, if you will. I know you also 
have to balance the maintenance of the facility. Could you tell me what your impression 
is of the facility as far as potential maintenance down the road? I know he was talking 

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about the ice, which is a good topic. And then what's your short term goal for maximizing 
our open venue time? 
 
E. Sweeney: First of all, the facility is beautiful. We just had our executive vice president 
in 3 or 4 weeks ago, and she was thoroughly impressed with how old the facility is, what 
great shape it is. So we're very lucky to have that here in Manchester. Maintenance is a 
thing. Part of what Dan just mentioned is we do have a venue assessment happening in 
September. Actually I got another email about it to confirm the exact dates in September, 
to go over basically the inside of the facility, the external parts of the facility, to give us an 
assessment of suggestions that includes our ice plant. Because what we want to do is 
audit from a kind of once over of the two ice chillers. So we have two ice chillers in the 
building, one runs, the other supports. You try to put equal hours on each. And Dan did 
mention as part of phase one, we did some work to it. Some more work does need to be 
done to our two chillers. But we want our team from Legends Global, they specialize in 
this. They are our facilities division. They come in and they do an assessment. So it 
includes AC chillers. It includes ice chillers. They'll give us suggestions of what that is. 
We'd love to share that with you guys once we have all the information. So then we can 
start to look at what that looks like. And the advantage to that is also from a planning 
standpoint, to stretch further out so we can start putting further plans in progress or in 
process years out so it's on people's radar instead of trying to do it one year at a time. 
From the other priority standpoint, just from content and what that vision is, after five 
months, as you may or may not know, I was in a different part of the country. I actually 
have booked in New England before, so there are promoters I'm familiar with. So it's 
telling people where I am now. So from agents and promoters and then continuing to build 
on Tim's legacy. Tim had great contacts. We have transitioned those to me. We're still 
building relationships with those. Live Nation has a new person as well. So that's great 
because we're able to really build that bond from that standpoint. They're actively trying 
to program shows in here to what we have availability for calendar and what's touring on 
the road. And just weekly we have corporate booking calls, which when Brett talks about 
what we have from a corporate standpoint, we do have a central booking team, and it's a 
team who has higher level contacts with certain promoters. And then there's regional 
ones. So that's kind of how the booking works. So there's a local Live Nation person. And 
then there's also a national Live Nation person; you might talk to both in the same week. 
Like I might talk to a national one, but also the local one in New England. And then booking 
the building is obviously one of the top priorities. So it's one, making sure we're running 
the day to day. But two, the content. And I always, I tell our team this, and it's funny 
because Dan talked about some of the positions we're filling. We had an interview the 
other day and I walked them in the bowl and I said, at the end of the day, we do events 
for a living. This is why we're all here and we need to remember that. So yes, we're here 
to maintain and keep the building looking great, but at the same time, bring content to the 
building. 
 

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Alderman Vincent: Perfect. Just so you have a little background why I was asking that, 
the community around there, as you know, we have hotels, we have a lot of businesses. 
This is a big piece of Manchester's community and we really need to shine that piece. 
There aren't any cities north of Boston like us. And so the reason why there's a lot of 
concern out there is it never seems like we're constantly flooding that with business. And 
I know you can only do so much. And Brett, I know on the corporate level you guys can 
do so much, but we're just hoping that we can do more and really bring that because 
that'll flourish that area. It'll flourish the city. And it's a win for everybody. So I would 
personally appreciate whatever you can do, if that means putting your foot down on the 
gas even more, do it. We're all for it. And I know we can take it here in this city. So thanks 
for what you're doing, I appreciate it. 
 
B. Stefansson: If I could add to that, just from a corporate perspective, and this goes back 
to the merger and ASM, while a great company, was really well known for its operational 
excellence, back of house, their safety, their risk mitigation and while all a priority for 
Legends Global as a whole, what was unique about the merger is Legends is a super 
high focused revenue driving company. And so our old proposals were much more 
operational oriented and operations first. We have kind of transitioned to that with 
Legends Global and become highly focused on the content side, right? Driving revenue, 
creating heads and beds, if you will, for the local hotels. How do we create economic 
impact? So you're 100% right, like the conversation that we are having more and more 
and more in these rooms is all around content. And that's why we've been hyper focused 
around the enterprise content deals that I talked about earlier, renegotiating the 
Ticketmaster and Access deal and then the centralized booking strategy. Those are going 
to be all hyper critical in our success moving forward in order to drive content. 
 
Alderman Barry: I will talk about hockey. I know in 2001, we had the Monarchs here and 
they lasted for quite a few years and they left and went to California and unfortunately we 
tried ECHL but I think it was the wrong group. I think in the right hands, I think if we get 
the right organization in here, I think it will work out. Manchester has always been a very 
big hockey town and there's quite a few people in the city that still love hockey. So I think 
hopefully that's something if someone reaches out to you or if you reach out to someone 
that's interested. Again, if it's in the right hands, I think I think it will work. 
 
Alderman Dexter: Can you tell me about the financial relationship between the arena and 
the city in the sense of if there's a surplus of money, how that money gets turned back 
over to the city? Or does it get turned back over to the city? And if you know, do you know 
how it gets appropriated? 
 
E. Sweeney: So, how it works is we drive revenue. Our operating expenses go against 
that. So basically we try to sell what we do, self-fund ourselves. If there's any net at the 
end, it's split out between Legends and the city. Basically there's a couple exchanges 

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there. And one of those exchanges is also investing into a capital fund in which money 
goes. 
 
Alderman Dexter: Have you had a surplus in the last few years that you know of that the 
money is coming back to the city, maybe not into that capital fund, but is just extra money, 
for lack of a better term? 
 
E. Sweeney: I am aware of fiscal year 25. I wasn't here, but I can speak to that's being 
looked at to make sure that we tie out phase one. We tie out any money owed, meaning 
any surplus back to the city. So that is in progress and being looked at. 
 
Alderman Dexter: I'd like to see some of that money come right back into the downtown 
infrastructure. And if any of that money is available to support the area around the arena 
that supports the arena in the future. 
 
Chairman O'Neil: Maybe at a at a future meeting, we can have Sharon do a presentation. 
What I recall, they referred to them as buckets. Debt service was early on. It might have 
been a couple different targets for debt service. Everything was met, but there always 
was not money beyond whatever the capital bucket was. There wasn't always other 
revenue. And there may be, from 25, is my understanding. When we talk fiscal year, are 
we talking calendar year? 
 
E. Sweeney: No. That's a great clarification. We're talking November to October. 
 
Alderman Bonilla: I recognize that you both had mentioned that you had two shows lined 
up in October that you can't release yet. Before I came, I didn't see that part. And I was 
like, why are there no shows in October? I do see no shows in November, which is pretty 
concerning to me. Again, I'm not going to rehash everything everybody said, but if I could 
go back and remember the times when Phish was here three days, every venue around 
proximity could host their own events and they did well. Like, I feel like what we heard is 
businesses haven't seen them bring in revenue in those numbers in a long time. We had 
people all across the country come here. But again, when I see a month not being utilized 
for events, it is definitely concerning for us as well as my love and appreciation for all the 
local businesses that really drive our economy in Manchester. So it's just an observation. 
I do want to elevate it to you all. I do also want for you all to also look into like other things 
bachata salsa; if you could get like a bachata singer or salsa singer, it's a missed 
opportunity there to really have it. This new arena, look at your backyard in Manchester, 
look at the state itself. We have the biggest Latino festival coming to Manchester in over 
20 years. It is something for you all to think about as well as you continue to have 
conversations with other bands, other artists. I feel like it's a missed opportunity on our 
end. And it's also something that has been talked about a lot to me from several other 
community members, especially other bands that may not be in Spanish, but other bands 
that speak different languages so that we could fill up months where we may not feel like 

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we have anything going on. Love to see more things like Phish or things like that. Or even 
when I think of the Jonas Brothers, when I saw them coming to Manchester, it brings pride 
to me. It brings pride to the city, to our businesses. People are going to come in and all 
of a sudden Manchester is like somewhere where people want to be. I'm not saying they 
don't want to be here, but it's super cool to have something like that, like what Boston 
has. So I'd love to see more shows like that. Or when I see famous artists like Bad Bunny 
touring the world, I'm like, why can't Manchester be on the map? Not saying he would, 
but overall, there is a big desire to have more concerts in this venue. I know that that 
building has so much more potential. 
 
Alderman Goonan: Are you limited just by the number of seats or is there also certain 
promoters or certain organizations that own shows? I feel like sometimes people will ask 
me why isn’t such and such a show coming here? And I don't know if it's because they 
can't or they won't allow them to go or during the summer they're up at Meadowbrook. I 
mean, I always thought that there were certain promoters that only go to certain places 
or maybe those places are owned by the same kind of organization. 
 
B. Stefansson: Typically you'll find in the summertime, like Live Nation, as an example, 
owns a lot of outdoor sheds, and typically they'll put a lot of their content in the summer 
in their own buildings because they're garnering 100% of that revenue or close to that. 
So it's more advantageous for them as a business to program that way. But to answer 
your question specifically, a lot of times it's really all over the board. Sometimes an artist 
wants to play particular buildings for whatever reason or sometimes it's just the way the 
tour routing goes and dates that may be available. There's a whole combination of things 
that go into the why behind playing in a particular building. But that goes back to kind of 
what I started with in the power of the network and how do we continue to lean on Legends 
Global from a corporate perspective to continue to influence the why behind playing 
SNHU; that is really what our goal is. And so how do we put the right structure in place 
and how do we put the right deal structure in place and the right relationships, and lean 
on those relationships to drive content towards SNHU. I will say this, you know, the current 
book of business that we're looking at right now that we're talking about, which is this 
current year was built last year, right? That was built last year because tours aren't 
booking for next week, they're booking well in advance. And so part of Erin getting her 
feet under her, she's only been here five months. And so, a lot of these strategies really 
kind of being initiated over the last 4 to 6 months from a corporate perspective, we're 
already seeing those things pay dividends for 27. And I know we're focused on the now, 
but what we can control at this point in time is how do we really start to book out 27 and 
some of the data that we show or that we looked at earlier shows that 27 is starting to 
shape up to be better and will continue to grow to be better than 26 for sure. And we're 
hoping to continue to expand on that. 
 
Alderman Trisciani: I guess one of my questions is, you have been here five months and 
we appreciate that. And, you know, things change. Were you left with any pipeline coming 

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into this? Because I feel like we're saying, why don't you have anything in September? 
Why don't you have anything for November? And to your point here, there has to be a 
pipeline. So was there any sort of pipeline of shows left that you can be going after, or 
are you kind of starting fresh now moving forward? 
 
E. Sweeney: There were events that were confirmed. So for example, Journey and Shine 
Down, those were confirmed. So there was that pipeline. There were some holds on the 
calendar. So for example, we did have a hold for PBR. And then when I got here we were 
able to confirm that. And so it's a combination of both. So there was some pipeline, but 
with the transition, you're basically trying to pick up where the last person left off. And for 
us, and my strategy was reaching out to tours I knew that were going on the road or that 
I was looking at my previous venue. Just really reaching out to promoters, agents, the like 
to try to get holds on our calendar, to continue to cultivate what already existed. So what 
we're living now, like Brett mentioned, that was a year ago. Jonas Brothers is new. We 
actually turned that around in a month. So that was pretty exciting. So we actually 
confirmed mid-August. We announced August 17th, went on sale the 21st. And that's 
unusual, right? The show is September 26th. So that one was not inherited. Rock 
Orchestra was not inherited. A lot of the holds we have now on the calendar are not 
inherited. That's what we've been working toward. The past five months I've lived what 
that pipeline was and then we're continuing that pipeline to continue what that is. And 
that's where I felt it was important to speak about the holes that we're working on. And, 
since we did this to submit it last week, we've since put three sets of holds on the calendar, 
which is exciting. So it doesn't stop just because we sent you some notes so you could 
have some idea of what we were going to talk about this meeting. It's constant. I put holds 
on the calendar today. It's always working. Every day you're working on that amongst 
trying to do other things. 
 
Alderman Trisciani: I can appreciate that. So essentially you didn't have a lot of things in 
the pipeline to work off of. So we're kind of starting fresh. I think we need to figure out 
what that timing is and start looking at 2027 for when we're really going to be able to book 
more shows and have more activity based on the work you're doing. 
 
Chairman O'Neil: Just to go back on that, there was approximately five months from when 
Tim left to Erin getting here. So we're talking Erin's been here for a ten month window. 
It's hard to say what exactly went on. It was an acting general manager here, but I don't 
know that she had the power to book shows. I really don't know. There was also five 
months where we didn't have a general manager, a true general manager. Got to get 
central booking. They have to help out Erin. We have to get on them. That's something 
that when you go online and look at when they talk about central booking, well they have 
to help out the small markets. We need shows. So Alderman Dexter talked about the 
revenue back to the city. My understanding, prior to both of you coming on board, is that 
25 was a very good year, and there were supposed to be some revenue sharing that we 
haven't seen yet. And we'll get that figured out. Holds, we got to make happen. You know, 

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holds don't guarantee somebody's going to book a stay in a hotel or make reservations 
at a restaurant. We need those holds to turn in as soon as they can to shows. Is there a 
reason these shows can't be announced? 
 
E. Sweeney: It's two things. I always joke that we play in the world of anonymity as far as 
what the shows want. So they're delegating to us. They're telling us when we can 
announce, when we can show graphics, when we can put it on our website. All that's 
predicated by the tours. So the events coming in are telling us we're not even in charge 
of their graphics. They're approving all graphics. So those come in to us and they give us 
an announcement timeline. We're not making decisions on those things; they're telling us 
and then we're following their calendar. So that's why we can't announce, we're 
announcing two shows in September, etc., they're telling us that so we can't share that in 
advance. 
 
Chairman O'Neil: It's the act or the promoter. 
 
E. Sweeney: Yes. So we know the show's coming. We're in the back end, building out the 
seats. So then when we announce it and go on sale, people can right away purchase 
seats. So we're doing all that legwork now for those shows. 
 
Chairman O'Neil: I think it was mentioned by a couple of my colleagues. The biggest 
concern is the agreement we have with Legend and have had with your three 
predecessors, is profit and loss. The city's really protected on that, unlike other 
agreements that exist across the country. So, my concern is the impact on our local 
businesses, the restaurants, people that invested in restaurants and hotels. There's a lot 
of info about Legends online. Number one, it was founded by George Steinbrenner of the 
Yankees and Jerry Jones of the Cowboys. So it's big. It's meant to be big and it's big. I 
hope Manchester fits in that. I look at it that we don't have an expense problem. We have 
a revenue problem. And how do we get revenue? By getting shows. That's all we can do. 
We'll welcome the opportunity to get that report on the facility as soon as it's ready if we 
need to dig down a little deeper into the ice plant. Some corporate people with really good 
ice experience came in and helped. We got to make sure the central ice plants are in 
good shape if we're going to continue trying to book ice shows, whether it's the local stuff, 
Disney on Ice, or if there's ever a chance to get hockey up. And we may have to take a 
study to a little higher level, maybe on that. 
 
Alderman Barry: Just go back to hockey, hopefully someone reaches out to you and have 
a good conversation and really think seriously about bringing hockey back if we can. 
Again, if we get the right organization in there, I think it'll work. 
 
B. Stefansson: And just to expand on that a little bit, if somebody does reach out, what 
would be the right process for us? Is there a specific league I want to identify with or is it 
kind of open? 

September 1, 2026 SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON BASEBALL/CIVIC CENTER 
Page 11 of 12 
 
 
Alderman Barry: I mean, ideally we'd love AHL, but I don't think we're going to get that. 
ECHL in the right hands I think would work. 
 
B. Stefansson: And would that be brought to the committee or what would be the right 
step if somebody reached out to us? 
 
Chairman O'Neil: It'd be good to involve the committee so there's a mechanism. That 
would be good. Somebody questioned what we were going to do for 45 minutes, and I'm 
being told we got two minutes left. So we covered a lot. Where is MVP arena? 
 
B. Stefansson: In Albany. 
 
Chairman O'Neil: That's Albany. And then where is People's Bank? 
 
E. Sweeney: That's in Hartford, Connecticut. 
 
Chairman O'Neil: Hartford. I went online and looked at some. There isn't one situation 
identical to Manchester. Some have convention centers, some have hockey, some have 
college hockey. Providence has college basketball. Every community is different. There 
isn't an arena in New England, I didn't do a lot on Connecticut, that is identical to 
Manchester. So each market's a little different. So again, I want to thank you both for 
being on the hot seat a little bit in answering the questions. Please go back to corporate 
and say we need some help in getting some shows in. And again, I think you two are 
outstanding people. And I think some of the decisions were made high up in your 
organization. I maybe don't agree with them. And if you two were here, maybe we'd have 
a chance to talk about it. But I want to thank you both for taking the time to be here and 
please stay in touch. 
 
B. Stefansson: Well, we appreciate the time. We appreciate the partnership and message 
heard loud and clear: content, content, content. 
  
  
 
 

September 1, 2026 SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON BASEBALL/CIVIC CENTER 
Page 12 of 12 
 
There being no further business, on motion of Alderman Barry, duly seconded by 
Alderman Vincent, it was voted to adjourn. 
 
A True Record.  Attest. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  Clerk of Committee 
Meeting Start Time: 5:00PM 
Meeting End Time: 5:44PM 
Minutes Prepared By: Michael Intranuovo