Professional lacrosse team finds home at Selby Stadium

The Ohio Machine are com­ing to Ohio Wesleyan’s Selby Sta­dium. The Major League Lacrosse team will cel­e­brate its inau­gural sea­son in May 2012. (Cour­tesy | The Ohio Machine)

KATE LIEBERS

BRYAN KISH

Staff Writ­ers

Ohio Wes­leyan University’s Selby Sta­dium has been selected to house Ohio’s first pro­fes­sional lacrosse team — a move expected to have a sig­nif­i­cant eco­nomic impact on Delaware city.

“It’s a sig­nif­i­cant get for the city,” said city spokesper­son Lee Yoakum. “It is a tremen­dous way to draw peo­ple into our core down­town before and after the game.”

The men’s Major League Lacrosse team, the Ohio Machine, is sched­uled to play its home games at OWU’s Selby Sta­dium for the 2012 and 2013 seasons.

About a half dozen sta­di­ums through­out the Cen­tral Ohio area were con­sid­ered, accord­ing to John Algie, gen­eral man­ager of the Ohio Machine, the Delaware-based Major League Lacrosse (MLL) team. The Selby’s recent $3-million dol­lar face-lift made it the ideal choice, he said. In addi­tion to new light­ing, the improve­ments included a state of the art video board and sound sys­tem, new bleacher seats and refur­bished locker rooms, two-level press box, a new turf field and con­ces­sion stands.

“The ren­o­va­tions were fan­tas­tic,” Algie said. “The sta­dium itself has a lot of his­tory. Adding OWU as a part­ner will help us grow the game.”

Addi­tion­ally, a “Fan Zone” pro­vides a ven­dor vil­lage for the team’s spon­sors to net­work with fans. Algie said national spon­sors include Sports Author­ity, War­rior, New Bal­ance, Ford, Bud Light, Pow­er­ade and Cas­cade Hel­mets. He said the Machine is actively pur­su­ing spon­sor­ships with local busi­nesses as well.

Delaware busi­nesses are expected to expe­ri­ence direct and indi­rect perks from the part­ner­ship. In addi­tion to more busi­ness on event days, shops may see vis­it­ing fans return to the city after attend­ing a game, Yoakum said.

“We have seen this pri­mary and sec­ondary impact pre­vi­ously with events at Selby Sta­dium,” said Yoakum. “Most recently, the track and field cham­pi­onships brought a tremen­dous amount of peo­ple through our downtown.”

For exam­ple, Amatos Wood­fired Pizza near cam­pus expe­ri­enced about 25 per­cent more busi­nesses dur­ing that cham­pi­onship week­end, accord­ing to co-owner Craig Johnson.

“We were sub­stan­tially busier,” John­son said. “Any­time that you add more peo­ple walk­ing down­town, you’re going to be busier.”

The part­ner­ship also rep­re­sents a grow­ing inter­est in lacrosse between north­ern Colum­bus and the City of Delaware, Yoakum added.

“We have a Greater Colum­bus Area fla­vor,” said Algie. “We’re going to be rely­ing on the Greater Colum­bus Area and of course Delaware for their sup­port, first and foremost.”

The inau­gural 2012 sea­son will run from May to August, with the Sports Author­ity MLL All-Star Game in July and the Sports Author­ity MLL Cham­pi­onship Week­end pre­sented by War­rior at the end of August.

Sea­son tick­ets for the inau­gural sea­son are cur­rently on sale for $100 dol­lars per seat. Day of game ticket prices have yet to be set. Fur­ther infor­ma­tion can be found at theohiomachine.com.

Posted by Kate Liebers on Aug 16 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.