THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 25, 1994 TAG: 9406250362
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY RICH RADFORD, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940625 LENGTH: Medium
Your response was clear: ``Yeah, why not?''
{REST} During a three-day INFOLINE survey asking area residents what they thought of the idea of Hampton Roads gaining a big league professional sports franchise, callers overwhelmingly believed the area deserves a franchise and basketball narrowly defeated football as the sport of choice.
Of 1,965 callers, 1,573 (80 percent) believed the area deserved a franchise and would support a franchise. Only 11.9 percent of callers believed the area deserved a franchise but would not support it, while 6.4 percent believed the area did not deserve a franchise.
As for whether taxpayer dollars should fund construction of a stadium or big-league arena, 72.1 percent said yes. Only 11.9 percent were opposed to taxpayer funding while 12.9 percent were not sure whether they wanted taxpayers to fund a proposed stadium or arena.
Basketball drew support from 541 callers (27.5 percent) as the sport of choice, beating football (27.3 percent) by a mere four votes. Baseball earned 21.8 percent of the votes while hockey drew a support audience of 16.2 percent. And 5.4 percent of the callers said they do not want to see a franchise here.
Asked how many tickets individuals would purchase if the sport of their choice placed a franchise in the area - given the average ticket price in each sport - 42.8 percent said they would buy season tickets, 13.2 percent said they'd attend 11 to 20 games a year, 20 percent said they'd attend six to 10 games a year and 21.1 percent said they'd attend one to five games a year.
As a whole, those who called do not normally travel to out-of-town major sports events: 45.1 percent had not attended a big-league sports game in the last year, 36.7 had attended one to five games, 6.1 percent had attended six to 10 games and 9.4 percent had attended more than 10 games.
Virginia Beach was the overwhelming favorite location for a stadium or arena, garnering 728 votes (37 percent), which was more than Norfolk (18.1 percent) and Chesapeake (15.5 percent) combined. Portsmouth (3.4 percent) and Suffolk (3.3 percent) barely registered while 19.3 percent of the respondents said it didn't matter where a stadium or arena would be built.
{KEYWORDS} PROFESSIONAL SPORTS MAJOR LEAGUE
by CNB