By Eric Stock

BLOOMINGTON – Bloomington city officials are putting a positive spin on the financial losses that the new arena management firm racked up in its first year.

VenuWorks reported a $674,000 operating loss in the budget year that ended in April. Alderman Scott Black noted the arena has created an economic impact of $150 million since it opened over a decade ago.

“It’s undeniable that the Coliseum has had a major impact.” Black said. “Take that away and people talk about these fiscal losses, you are missing out on the big picture of these things. How many people went to a show stayed in a (hotel) room, went to a convention, hung around, bought gas. There’s are things that start to calculate up.”

City Manager David Hales told WJBC’s Scott Laughlin and Patti Penn the city expected a tough first year financially for the new arena operators.

PODCAST: Listen to Scott and Patti’s interview with Hales on WJBC.

“They’ve made some good improvements this year. We knew this would be the toughest year and some of the loss in revenue occurred because we didn’t get the new naming rights until just recently.

Grossinger Motors is paying $175,000 a year for naming rights.

“Certainly I wish (revenue) would have been greater, but it was a difficult transition year for anyone coming off the heels of the last year of the (Central Illinois Arena Management) of the Coliseum,” Hales added.

Black told VenuWorks director Lynn Cannon at Monday’s City Council meeting the arena needs to do a better job promoting its events.

“My constructive criticism would be marketing

“As somebody who pays attention, I often hear out about shows after the fact when I would be happy to go to it beforehand,” Black said.

“You’d be happy to hear that is a top goal for us this year,” Cannon replied

Eric Stock can be reached at [email protected].