Anaheim Officials Predict Team Will Boost Economy : Budget: Analysts estimate the franchise would generate $90 million a year in spending countywide. The city would receive $150,000 in sales tax revenue.

Having Disney’s expansion hockey team in the new arena this year would go a long way toward relieving potential budget deficits the city faces, officials said Friday.

Already grappling with a bare-bones budget and facing an equally tight fiscal situation next year, a professional franchise would provide revenue for the city and financial benefits for the local economy.

“The hockey team here is going to bring a financial boom to the city and all of Orange County,” said Anaheim Mayor Tom Daly.

City economists estimate the hockey team would generate upward of $90 million a year in total spending throughout the county and create 70 full-time and 1,000 part-time jobs. They also predict that the city would receive about $150,000 in additional sales tax revenue.

“This is going to be a boost to the local economy,” City Manager James D. Ruth said Friday. “It’s a win-win situation for everybody.”

Perhaps the biggest financial gain for the city if Disney fields a team next hockey season is the reduction of its liability in the $103-million project’s debt. As part of an agreement passed by the City Council Friday, the city could save as much as $12.5 million over the next three years.

The savings would come from a complex arrangement between the city and one of its partners, Ogden Entertainment. Under the agreement, Ogden had to pay out $12.5 million as an indemnity fee to the Los Angeles Kings for the territorial rights to play in Anaheim.

The city permitted Ogden to put that fee toward the cost of the arena project, allowing Ogden to get reimbursed for the expenditure from future revenues.

In return, Ogden erased the first three years of the city’s eight-year financial liability. Before the amendment to that agreement, the city stood to pay Ogden as much as $2.5 million annually for eight years if neither a professional hockey nor basketball team was a tenant in the arena. The debt was reduced to $1.5 million with one team, under the old agreement.

Those type of payments would have been devastating, city officials said.

On Friday, the councilmen hailed the new agreement and the reduction of the city’s financial liability.

“The beauty of this deal is there is going to be no financial exposure to the taxpayers for three years,” said Councilman Fred Hunter, one of the main supporters of the arena project.

By the end of the third year, Hunter said, the city should have a professional basketball team in the arena that would nullify all the city’s liability for the remaining five years.

Councilman Bob D. Simpson said the city is going to be reaping the financial rewards of the arena project for years to come.

“This is a red-letter day in the city of Anaheim,” Simpson said. “Throughout history, we have taken on projects that people said couldn’t work and made them work.”