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CRAIN’S CLEVELAND BUSINESS
WWW.CRAINSCLEVELAND.COM
NOVEMBER 28 - DECEMBER 4, 2011
Browns offer price freeze on club seats But customers must commit to five seasons By JOEL HAMMOND jmhammond@crain.com
The Cleveland Browns are making a push to lock in premium seat buyers at Cleveland Browns Stadium, literature recently distributed by the team to those customers shows. The Browns are offering club seat buyers the opportunity to lock in their current prices — ranging from $1,260 to $2,800 for a season ticket, depending on location within the club seating area — for three years if they commit to buying their seats for five years and sign up for that plan by this Thursday, Dec. 1. The five-year option would be subject to a 3% hike in 2015 and again in 2016, according to team literature, which would amount to a first-year jump of $38 for the cheapest club seats and $84 for the most expensive. The plan is an attempt by the Browns to maintain their season ticket base in an era where uncertainty — especially in premium seat areas — reigns. “The certainty is obviously advan-
tageous for us” in terms of the effort required to sell those seats if it can lock buyers in for multiple years, said Jim Ross, the team’s vice president of business development. “We’re not renewing that entire base every year. For customers, it’s price assurance.” The club area at Browns Stadium offers customers a climate-controlled bar and seating area. In addition to the price freeze, the Browns are providing fans who commit to five more years a $250 voucher to be used at concession or merchandise stands at the stadium. The Browns’ offer is not unusual. Bill Dorsey, chairman of the Cincinnati-based Association of Luxury Suite Directors, said some teams are including an all-inclusive food option in similar long-term club seat deals, thus giving those who commit for an extended period another perk that customers with shorter terms don’t have. Whether the Browns’ offer lures more customers to commit long term remains to be seen.
Akron: Hospitals alter approaches continued from PAGE 1
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in downtown Akron into a mock hospital. There, medical students and practicing physicians would train and practice their skills with the help of actors, cadavers, dummies and computer simulators. The building, at 47 N. Main St., is scheduled to be finished by April. It will house the institute’s headquarters on its third floor. The institute has faced challenges, said president and CEO Dr. Frank Douglas. For one, it lost a $5 million earmark from the U.S. Department of Defense a year ago, when both houses of Congress decided not to pass any earmarks for two years, he said. Plus, the institute expects to receive less state money than originally forecast because the Ohio Third Frontier economic development program now aims to fund more startups and less research. Dr. Douglas said he plans to spend much of 2012 raising money from the philanthropic community. Regardless, the institute — which still receives money from its five partner institutions and several other sources — is off to a good start, he said. “I will say without fear that you will not find another institution that has made as much progress” in three years, Dr. Douglas said.
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The Austen BioInnovation Institute has played a big role in changing the culture at Summa, said Steven Schmidt, vice president of clinical research and innovation at the hospital system. Summa has been issued only a handful of patents over the past 35 years, he said. The system started
working to change that situation in 2009, when it updated its intellectual property policy to extend beyond Akron City Hospital and to give bigger payouts to whomever invents technology that produces revenue. In June 2010, staff from Austen’s Medical Device and Development Center started meeting with Summa physicians to gather their ideas for inventions, help them identify problems and find ways to solve them. Summa already is negotiating a deal to license out a technology it developed with the institute’s help. That technology, called PacerMan, includes a dummy made with materials designed to give medical students and doctors a realistic sense of what it feels like to guide pacemaker leads through the body to stimulate the heart. The technology also includes software that gives users feedback on their performance. Summa alone produced more than 50 invention disclosures over the past 12 months, Mr. Olmstead said. Akron Children’s produced 20 and Akron General produced six, but those numbers should go up considerably because neither of those hospital systems had viable intellectual property policies in place when they started working with Austen, he said.
As real as can be Austen’s medical device center — which also helps partner institutions develop device prototypes and is almost done building out a prototyping laboratory near the institute’s new headquarters — is just one of the four centers within the organization, which employs 25 people. For now, Austen’s Center for Simulation and Integrated Health
“Every team has its own supplyand-demand curve,” Mr. Dorsey said. “If it’s the (Green Bay) Packers? Fans likely would jump on it. If it’s the Browns, where there is excess inventory? It’s not as easy a sell.” One club ticket buyer who spoke with Crain’s said his tickets haven’t risen in price since after the 2007 season, the Browns’ last winning year, when they went 10-6 and nearly made the playoffs. He said he’s still considering whether to make the five-year commitment for his four club seats. Customers who only want to renew their club seats for 2012 will not see a price increase next year if they commit by Thursday. In addition, customers who pay for their club seat plans in full by March 1 will have access to a Meet the Coaches event, a $50 merchandise/concession voucher and a hat. Customers who pay in full by April receive the voucher and hat. Those who don’t renew their club seats could be subject to repayment of their personal seat license fee — the fee customers must pay for the right to buy seats at the stadium, except in the east end zone — which costs as much as $1,500 per seat for club seats. Mr. Ross acknowledged that prices have not gone up in the club seat area. “But,” he added, “that doesn’t mean they won’t.” “The time to raise these prices may be coming soon,” he said. “That’s the proposition for (ticket buyers).” ■
Care Education is using a large ambulance that has been converted into a medical simulation center. Once built, the permanent simulation center should portray what it’s like to treat a patient from the moment an actor arrives in the fake waiting room through the end of a fake surgery on a dummy or cadaver in the fake operating room, said Dr. Michael Holder, vice president for the center. Dr. Douglas, the institute’s leader, noted that researchers from partner institutions are working together on several grant-financed research projects related to wound healing and orthopedics through the institute’s Center for Biomaterials and Medicine. That center includes the six-monthold Akron Functional Materials Center, housed on the University of Akron campus. There, researchers are collaborating with 15 companies to develop new technologies, most which would be available to the whole group, Dr. Douglas said. “We may bring together a polymer scientist with a physician from Summa with a biochemist from NEOMED,” he said. The Center for Community Health Improvement is working on ways to unite Akron’s social service agencies and health care providers to make the community as a whole healthier. For instance, it is creating a program to help diabetes patients more easily tap community resources. Plus, the center is building a network of physicians interested in helping drug companies do clinical trials that would test the effects of drugs after they have been released. The institute aims to bring even more clinical trials to the community through a newly created Clinical Trials Center, Dr. Douglas said. “We recognize the fact that there’s a real opportunity,” he said. ■
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