The Ridgewood Blog Brings a Free Market Laissez-faire Point of View to Local, New Jersey State and National Issues.
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East Rutherford NJ, AMC’s The Walking Dead spinoff Dead City , formerly known as Isle of the Dead was filmed in New Jersey last year.
Continue reading ‘The Walking Dead’ Spinoff Series “Dead City” Filmed In Bergen County
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East Rutherford NJ, A new law sponsored by Senator Steve Oroho makes it easier for promoters to bring major sports and entertainment events to New Jersey, bolstering tourism and increasing revenue.
“Tourism is big business for this state, but cumbersome permitting and regulations sometimes make it challenging to bring major events here,” said Oroho (R-Sussex, Warren, Morris). “We’ve seen the benefits of high-profile events like the Super Bowl and WrestleMania injecting millions of dollars into the economy. By cutting through the red tape, we can make New Jersey a go-to location for large-scale special events.”
Continue reading Promoting NJ as Destination for Large Entertainment Events
If Casinos didn’t help Atlantic City what makes you think they can help North Jersey ?
No one should look to the gambling industry to revive cities, “because that’s not what casinos do.”
Baltimore is a troubled city, as you know from The Wire. Like many troubled cities, Baltimore has turned to casino gambling as its solution. On August 26, a new Caesar’s casino will open on the site of an old chemical factory, a little more than 2 miles from the famous Inner Harbor and Camden Yards baseball stadium. Yet there’s already reason to expect the casino to disappoint everyone involved: the city looking for tax revenues, the workers hoping for jobs, the investors expecting hefty returns.
Outside of Las Vegas—now home to only 20 percent of the nation’s casino industry—casino gambling has evolved into a downscale business. Affluent and educated people visit casinos less often than poorer people do for the same reasons that they smoke less and drink less and weigh less.
Unfortunately for the casino industry’s growth hopes, downscale America has less money to spend today than it did before 2007. Nor is downscale America sharing much in the post-2009 recovery. From a news report on the troubles of a recently opened Ohio casino:
Ameet Patel, general manager of the property, says the softness in casino revenue that he and other operators have seen has been driven by a key demographic: women older than 50 who used to bet $50 to $75 per visit. The weak recovery has squeezed their gambling budgets, and their trips to casinos are fewer, he says.
What’s true in Ohio applies nationwide. Casino revenues had still not recovered their 2007 peaks as of the spring of 2014, when again they went into reverse in most jurisdictions. Moody’s now projects that casino revenues will drop through the rest of 2014 and all of 2015, slicing industry earnings by as much as 7.5 percent.
MAY 23, 2015, 9:38 PM LAST UPDATED: SATURDAY, MAY 23, 2015, 9:52 PM
BY NICHOLAS PUGLIESE
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
EAST RUTHERFORD — The atmosphere surrounding MetLife Stadium was certainly carnivalesque: Men in neon suits walked past tutu-clad women whirling hula hoops. A giant grasshopper mounted on pogo sticks flitted through crowds. And enough skin was on display to make the Shore jealous.
To add to the sensory overload, Saturday’s event shook with pulsating, bass-heavy music blaring from enormous columns of speakers.
It was the soundtrack of America’s nightclubs and raves — electronic dance music, or EDM.
The Meadowlands Sports Complex is playing host this weekend to the “New York” incarnation of the Electric Daisy Carnival, the biggest electronic music festival on the East Coast that runs for two days and boasts a line-up of nearly 100 popular DJs such as Armin van Buuren, Calvin Harris and Bassnectar.
As many as 100,000 were expected to attend over the two days.
“It’s literally the craziest weekend of the year every year,” said Christian Runza, a 19-year-old aspiring DJ from Old Tappan. “Every set you’re going to see someone you love.”
The outlandish outfits are part and parcel of an EDM culture that prizes self-expression above all else.
“You come out here to be anyone you want to be or anything you want to be,” said Jake Berto, 23, who had traveled all the way from San Francisco for the event. “Nobody judges you.”
Buzzer sounds on Izod Center: Arena expected to close after years of decline
JANUARY 14, 2015, 2:55 PM LAST UPDATED: THURSDAY, JANUARY 15, 2015, 1:27 AM
BY JOHN BRENNAN
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
The Christie administration wants to close the Izod Center, which has been a key component of the Meadowlands Sports Complex for 34 years, perhaps as soon as the end of this month.
The New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority board will be asked at its monthly meeting Thursday to approve a plan that would shutter the 18,000-seat arena by the end of March. The date would be moved up if acts booked there for February and March can be relocated to the Prudential Center in Newark.
Two influential Bergen County Democrats — state Sens. Paul Sarlo and Loretta Weinberg — were harshly critical of the proposal.
The facility, which since 2007 has borne the name of the clothing maker Izod, lost its sports tenants – the Devils of the NHL, Seton Hall University basketball and the Nets NBA franchise – between 2007 and 2010. Only a handful of concerts have been held at the arena in the past two years, although three dozen schools held graduation ceremonies there last spring and the arena still attracts family oriented holiday shows.
Wayne Hasenbalg, the president of the sports authority, said the decision, though difficult, was a matter of economics and the ongoing transformation of the Meadowlands Sports Complex, highlighted by the American Dream entertainment and retail project.
“Just about everyone in New Jersey and the region has great memories of big-name concerts, basketball or hockey games or other family entertainment at the arena,” said Hasenbalg, who grew up in Oakland.
“Jim” McGreevey’s Xanadu
After years of Squandering Billions Identity crisis for NJ sports authority
JUNE 28, 2014, 11:48 PM LAST UPDATED: SATURDAY, JUNE 28, 2014, 11:51 PM
BY JOHN BRENNAN
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD
With its finances in the red and its role sharply curtailed, questions are being raised about the long-term future of the agency that put New Jersey on the map of big-time sports.
But no matter what its fate, the hard truth is that the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, which once netted tens of millions of dollars annually from The Meadowlands Racetrack and Giants Stadium, will likely be a lingering financial liability for state taxpayers.
A series of decisions by officials over time have left it marooned, with significant structural costs and little means to pay for them other than dipping into the state treasury. The agency continues along, its prime attractions now in private hands, sagging under obligations undertaken during more flush times and with a payroll that — while pared significantly — still includes executives with some of the highest salaries in state government.
“There are certain obligations entered into by prior administrations that we’re going to be living with for the next 25 years,” said Wayne Hasenbalg, who makes $225,000 as president of the authority. “Some of these costs we inherited — even if the authority went away today — are still going to be somebody’s obligations.”
Among those obligations are long-term pension costs for retired workers, more than $6 million in annual payments due to East Rutherford as the host town of the Meadowlands Sports Complex and $4 million per year toward operating costs of the state Racing Commission.
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/identity-crisis-for-nj-sports-authority-1.1043202#sthash.Ddvgl4c0.dpuf
