Anaheim Profits From Angels’ Victories

The Anaheim Angels’ payoff for their magical season came two weeks ago when the team won its first world championship. Tuesday, the city of Anaheim cashed in on the team’s success -- netting $265,000 from its ticket-sales deal with the team.

It’s the first time since the city renegotiated its stadium lease with the Angels six years ago that the team has sold enough tickets for the deal’s 2.6 million attendance threshold to kick in.

“It helps pay the bills, and it helps take away some of the bad years,” said Greg Smith, the city’s executive director of sports and entertainment.

Under the deal, the Angels pay the city $2 for every ticket sold over 2.6 million. The Angels’ home attendance, including two preseason games and nine playoff games, totaled 2,732,860. Had the Angels been eliminated in the American League Championship Series, the total attendance would have been about 40,000 shy of 2.6 million.

“The World Series put us over,” Smith said. “I sure think we have a great chance of hitting 3 million next year.”

Smith said the unexpected year-end bonus will go into the city’s general fund.

“I will recommend to the City Council that the money go toward stadium improvements,” he said. “But it’s up to the City Council. They could use it to buy new library books if they want to. Or they could just save it for a rainy day.”

Before Anaheim signed the 33-year lease agreement with Disney, the city operated the stadium.

Smith said the city lost money on the Angels until 1980, when the Rams football team joined them as tenants of Anaheim Stadium.

When the Angels reached the playoffs in 1982, Smith said, the team drew 2.8 million and the city netted about $2 million on the Rams and Angels.