Baseball Economics are Voodoo

I'm not sure I understand how, if your baseball team has been "struggling" to make money in New Britain where your lease costs $110k and you can seat 6000, you can possibly make money when your lease in Hartford will cost $500k and you seat 9000.  

Moreover, I don't know which city officials in their right minds would bond $60 million (with payments of $1.5-2.0 million/year) in exchange for a lease of $500k.

For comparison, the 20th most valuable minor league baseball franchise in 2012 was the Omaha Storm Chasers.  With revenues of $8million they cleared $600k.  Their 6300 seat stadium cost $26 million and they pay $450k/year to the county that owns it.  The county gets revenue from all sales tax at the park, and a "portion of the sales and hotel taxes generated from stores and hotels near the ballpark".   Hartford has none of those options available.  They will probably get parking revenue although it's hard to see making up $1million/year even at $10/car.

I'm predicting that if this actually goes through, the Rock Cats will declare bankruptcy before the 2018 season and Hartford will have a shiny, two-year old, empty stadium attracting no one.

#thesecatsrock?