Beach officials hope to lure Redskins’ training camp to Sportsplex
VIRGINIA BEACH
The Washington Redskins could be calling Virginia Beach their summer home as soon as 2009.
Redskins officials are in preliminary talks with city staff to move the team’s training camp to the Virginia Beach Sportsplex in a deal that would bring professional football players, coaches and their legion of fans to the region each summer.
The discussions are still nascent, and officials from both the city and the NFL-playoffs bound Redskins have tried to keep them quiet.
But Beach officials said the Redskins are asking the city to pony up about $2.5 million, including infrastructure improvements to the Sportsplex, in exchange for moving the team’s training camp from Ashburn, just outside of Washington, D.C. to Virginia Beach.
The improvements would include weight training facilities and an additional practice field, those close to the negotiations said.
If both sides come to an agreement, the move wouldn’t occur until at least 2009, officials said.
The potential Redskins deal comes as city officials are working on a separate proposal from a handful of professional baseball players from Hampton Roads who want to build a baseball clinic and sports training facility near the Sportsplex.
City council members and local business leaders acknowledged that having a major sports team like the Redskins headline the Sportsplex would be a marketing boost and would put a national spotlight on the Beach. It would also help rescue the Sportsplex, which lost its main tenant, the minor league soccer team the Virginia Beach Mariners, last year.
City officials are reviewing two other plans for the land adjacent to the Sportsplex.
“Most people associate major league sports with major league cities,” said Martha McClees, executive director of Virginia Beach Vision, an organization of business and civic leaders.
Karl Swanson, a spokesman for the Redskins, declined to comment on any move to Virginia Beach.
But Swanson said that every year the Redskins field requests from communities to host the training camp.
Since 2003, Redskins players have spent several weeks between July and August training at Redskins Park, the team’s year-round practice field and headquarters in Ashburn. The players stay at the National Conference Center, and are bused six miles to practice at the Park.
Several of the practice sessions are open to the public, and players stick around after to sign autographs and talk to fans.
The benefit of holding camp in Ashburn has always been the convenience of using the team’s own facilities.
But it wasn’t always that way.
For most of the last 45 years, the team, its coaches, doctors, and fans trekked to Carlisle, Pa. and Frostburg, Md. for their summer training.
Beach officials said the Redskins management is once again looking for some seclusion, so players can focus and practice drills and their moves without the distraction of being so close to home.
Negotiations to move the training camp to Virginia Beach rose out of the city’s existing relationship with the team through the Redskins Beach Blitz.
The annual event, which will be in its third year this May, draws about 7,000 Redskins fans to the Virginia Beach Convention Center, said Jim Ricketts, director of the city’s Convention & Visitors Bureau. Ricketts is handling the negotiations with the Redskins.
“We, as a city, value our relationship with the Washington Redskins, we’re open to ways to strengthen that relationship,” Ricketts said.
But some Beach Council members are concerned that the training camp may come at too high a price, especially when the city is facing an estimated $50 million shortfall in fiscal 2009.
“The attraction and lure of having the Redskins here is certainly interesting,” said City Councilman Harry Diezel. “I thought it was a good idea. And if the Redskins want to do it, they’re well-heeled enough to do it.”
The City Council was briefed in closed session about the proposal last month and asked staff to get more information and try to reduce the cost to taxpayers. The camp is also in the middle of the summer, when the city is flush with tourists and hotel rooms, especially at the Oceanfront, are booked.
In fact, officials have talked about housing the Redskins’ players at Founder’s Inn, located on the grounds of Regent University, near the border with Chesapeake.
But City Councilman Ron Villaneuva said the Redskins camp could be an additional amenity for tourists who visit Virginia Beach in the summer.
“It’s another attraction,” Villanueva said. “And you get people venturing outside the Oceanfront.”
Councilman Jim Wood said he would like to see local businesses and the Chamber of Commerce pitch in to bring the Redskins to the Beach.
“I think it certainly bears further investigating,” Wood said. “But we really need to have the private sector participate to offset the costs.”
With the increasing popularity of pre-season camps, the region stands to gain if the Redskins come to the Sportsplex, said James Koch, an economic professor at Old Dominion University and its former president.
“If we don’t have to spend a lot, lot, lot of money, it’s quite possible it could be a good investment,” Koch said. “Preseason camps bring in people from different locations....It’s something that has become more and more important to the sports fan.”
Staff writer Jim Ducibella contributed to this report.
Deirdre Fernandes, (757) 222-5121, deirdre.fernandes@pilotonline.com
http://hamptonroads.com/2008/01/beach-o ... sportsplex
