By Paul Gattis
The Rocket City Trash Pandas and the city of Madison are working through the process of identifying how much money the minor league baseball team owes the city in accordance with its lease agreement.
That process includes an audit by the city of the Trash Pandas finances that both sides describe as routine and will determine how much the team owes the city.
The team said it will pay “in full” what is owed to the city, though that may be less than the $1 million annual guarantee to the city because of the lost 2020 baseball season due to the pandemic.
Team officials also said the Trash Pandas would not be seeking financial cover from the force majeure clause in the lease beyond the cancellation of the 2020 baseball season. That cancellation devastated the Trash Pandas’ financial model and left the team scrambling to schedule other events during the pandemic to finance team operations.
Force majeure is generally a clause in a contract that relieves one party from its obligations if there isan unforeseen catastrophe or act of God.
The team eventually held 175 events in 2020 that, financially, were a “huge success collectively,” according to Garrett Fahrmann, the team’s executive vice president and general manager.
The audit is studying revenues the team generated from non-baseball events in 2020 after it received its certificate of occupancy of Toyota Field – the $46 million stadium built by the city. Baseball revenue lost to the team will not be held against it, Madison Mayor Paul Finley said.
According to the lease, which is for 30 years and was built on the assumption of an annual 70-game home baseball schedule, the Trash Pandas owe the city of Madison “at least” $1 million annually in addition to splitting other revenues such as parking. Included in the $1 million is a $250,000 “base license fee” that Finley described as “rent.” Fahrmann said the audit is important following the team’s first year of operation to establish a foundation for sharing the team’s revenues as agreed to in the lease.