The players partied at Fort Lauderdale’s iconic Elbo Room, plunged into the surf with the Stanley Cup, and the team and city planned a celebratory Sunday parade down State Road A1A.
But wait: Didn’t the Florida Panthers win their National Hockey League championship over the Edmonton Oilers in Sunrise?
From the beachfront lounges, bars and T-shirt shops of Fort Lauderdale to restaurants in Pompano Beach, Plantation and yes, Sunrise, incalculable amounts of money flowed with alacrity across Broward County this week as fans, businesses and municipalities celebrated the hockey team’s first Stanley Cup in its 30-year history.
As Panthers players fulfilled post-party commitments to meet fans at establishments around the county — hundreds lined Federal Highway in Pompano Beach to get a glimpse of Matthew Tkachuk at Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers — business leaders and public officials marveled at the possibilities ahead for professional sports in the region.
During the four games played at Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise, the economic impact that fans delivered to the county was between $2.5 million and $3 million, according to Visit Lauderdale, the county’s tourism development agency. In Sunrise, hotel occupancy was 92%, well above the 35% to 40% operators saw during the early summer doldrums of 2023.
Successful economic seasons
“In human terms, watching the difference it made to these local businesses is real,” Sunrise Mayor Michael Ryan said Thursday. “I don’t need data to see it. This helped make their own economic season a success.”
“I spent a lot of time talking to Oiler fans, particularly Game Seven when they came in droves,” he told the South Florida Sun Sentinel. “They were staying throughout the area. Sawgrass Mall was packed with Oiler fans. They said how much they enjoyed being here and are looking forward to coming back.”
For years, development agencies, city officials and promoters have talked up the positive “economic impact” of South Florida’s growing roster of professional sports teams, which besides the Panthers now includes the Miami Dolphins, Heat, Marlins and Inter Miami, the latest professional sports entry in Broward that temporarily resides in Fort Lauderdale while a new stadium is being built for the soccer club in Miami-Dade County.
This year, it was the Panthers who delivered the biggest dividends in not only money, but in continental visibility.
The entirety of South Florida helped generate the economic momentum, according to Greg Allen, vice president of sports at Visit Lauderdale.
Agency statistics show 83% of the fans came from Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, Allen said, with most of the balance coming from 10 states not including Florida. The top three: New York, California and New Jersey. Of the 19,939 fans who packed the arena for Game 7, between 3,000 to 3,500 were from Canada, according to Visit Lauderdale.
“Our attendance the last couple of years has been up 25%, and our ticket revenue has gone up 50%, and [business] partnership revenue is up 120%,” said Bryce Hollweg, the Panthers’ chief operating officer and a West Point graduate who played on Army’s hockey team. “That’s great for the business.”
Businesses of a variety of stripes have taken notice, hitching their wagons to a team whose on-ice performance markedly improved over the last four years. They’ve signed up for commercial sponsorships designed to promote their own enterprises as well as nonprofit endeavors for charitable causes.
“There are trickle-down effects to the community,” Hollweg said, with the chief beneficiaries being the hotels, restaurants and other hospitality outlets.
That includes charitable donations from the players themselves, led by Aleksander “Sasha” Barkov, the team captain whose #BarkovScores4JoeD campaign for the Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital Foundation led to $420,000 in commitments over five seasons to support kids, families, and programs at the hospital’s pediatric facility in Hollywood. Under the program, Barkov donates $1,600 for each goal scored and $800 for each assist during the regular season and playoffs. He also provides a suite at each home game for use by those connected to the hospital.
In January, the team hosted a holiday party for the hospital’s young patients.
It all adds up to a National Hockey League franchise whose success is contributing to local economic development, said Irwin Raij, co-chair of the sports, entertainment and media practice at the Sidley Austin law firm in Miami.
“You see this tremendous support around it as a destination opportunity,” he said. “It’s not just from a travel standpoint. Undoubtedly we have seen the evolution of the sport and how to monetize it at every level. Now we have special events around the buildings that are built. It’s not just the team, it’s their intellectual property. You never lose sight of how it’s a community asset.”
Visibility equals growth
Area CEOs had high praise for the Panthers as an organization that not only watches out for its own interests, but for the advancement of those who become business partners.
Before the 2023-24 regular season started last September, Amerant Bank acquired the naming rights of the Panthers’ home venue in Sunrise.
“We’ve gotten a lot of brand recognition,” Jerry Plush, the bank chairman and CEO, said Thursday. “The Panthers do all of their banking with us. It’s a full partnership. They’ve been absolutely fantastic partners. They’ve introduced us to a lot of individuals and a lot of companies.”
“It’s almost immeasurable, to be honest,” he said of the business lift for the bank, which not long ago changed its name and went public. “It’s put us on the map.”
FutureTech, a $500 million technology company that relocated to Fort Lauderdale from Long Island, N.Y., three years ago, acquired a “party” suite at the arena to entertain clients and to serve as a place for business meetings.
“Candidly, we wanted to do something big,” said Bob Venero, the company founder and CEO. So he arranged with Panthers management to outfit the suite with a 136-inch screen and seating for 50 people. “We had folks from Australia who came in for the Stanley Cup.”
“I give credit to the Panthers,” he added. “They are definitely helping us make a mark with this area and make a mark with our customers.”
Venero himself made a mark with a couple of celebrating Panthers — he gave them a ride home from the Elbo Room in his flashy red Tesla cybertruck.
Inclusion
Bob Swindell, president and CEO of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Alliance, the county’s economic development arm, credits Panthers management for ensuring that all of Broward has a place under the team’s umbrella.
“The Panthers leadership is very thoughtful about that,” he said. The team is giving props to Sunrise, Fort Lauderdale and the county as a whole in media presentations and promotions.
“They gave me an opportunity to talk to an audience about the alliance and why Fort Lauderdale is a great place to do business,” he said. “It’s something they didn’t have to do.”
City Furniture CEO Andrew Koenig said he envisions his Tamarac-based company renewing a sponsorship for a patio lounge area at the arena where fans can eat, drink and socialize during breaks in each game.
“They’re humble and they try to make it a win-win for your organization,” Koenig said. “I am confident in our return on investment. Not all sports partnerships are like that.”
The company also supports a program called “The Heroes Among Us” that honors World War II veterans during games.
“Every single game we recognize someone who has served our country,” Koenig said. “Their stories are just breathtaking. We give them a $1,000 gift card and it’s a very special announcement during the game. It’s about 90 seconds. The entire game stops. It’s a time when everybody’s cheering.”
Expanding the base
Going forward, the Panthers do not appear to be an organization that intends to wait for spectators to come to them.
Earlier this year, the Panthers opened the Baptist Health IcePlex in Fort Lauderdale — a public-private sector project designed to expand the team’s footprint “from the Everglades to the beach,” according to the team.
Officials said it is designed to serve as a practice facility for players, coaches and hockey operations staff while also serving as a community hub for the city’s Holiday Park, aimed at attracting families from throughout the tri-county area.
In April, the Panthers opened its first restaurant, The Federal, a burgers eatery inside the IcePlex in Holiday Park.
During the Stanley Cup finals, the Iceplex became a prime venue for the inevitable: watch parties that drew hundreds of fans.