2 min read April 2022 — The Florida Panthers hockey team is “a staple institution that’s a part of the county,” said team President and CEO Matthew Caldwell, who also shared the economic significance of the franchise. In an interview with Invest:, Caldwell discussed the lessons applied from the pandemic and the ways in which the franchise has expanded in the past year.
What is the economic significance of the Florida Panthers to Broward County?
The Florida Panthers and our arena are large economic drivers for the county. The arena itself is owned by Broward County as part of a wonderful public-private partnership. The county owns the location while we run the various events that can be hosted at the arena. We have employed around 300 full-time employees, including the hockey team, event food and beverage services, and parking. Our part-time staff includes around 1,000 employees who often work when an event is being held at the arena. We host events on 100 or more days out of the year along with 43 hockey games, so the arena is always active. We pride ourselves in keeping the business within the family and we’re one of the largest employers in the county. We have a strong relationship with the county and those surrounding it, so our impact expands beyond the walls of our arena. We are a staple institution that’s a part of the county.
What lessons have you learned from the last few years and how will you apply them moving forward?
Our reaction to the pandemic and our ability to pivot quickly allowed us to move forward with our operations at a semi-normal pace. Thankfully, we’re privately funded, so we were able to actively prepare the arena for activity once the pandemic evened out. We were the first NHL arena to receive certification from the WELL Building Institute, which is the global benchmark for sanitization. We adopted a cashless system to minimize the contact between fans throughout the arena and entered a more digital space as a result of the pandemic. Our ticketing services became fully mobile and we created a special new building-specific mobile app for patrons to order their food, merchandise, and other items directly from their phones. We have done our best to make the transition seamless for our customers.
Slowly but intentionally, we began inviting fans back to the arena and increased the capacity over time as the levels of safety increased. When the playoffs began last season, we were at 75% capacity. It provided us a head start to bring back live entertainment and a type of normalcy to our lives once again. We have since hosted big events, including performances by Luke Combs and Harry Styles. Prior to the pandemic, our revenue was surpassing previous years and it has continued to grow in the past year.
What is your outlook for the Florida Panthers and South Florida’s sports industry for the near future?
We have watched a massive transformation of the sports industry in South Florida and especially for the Florida Panthers. South Florida is no longer solely a tourist economy and we are proud to be a part of that change. We have accelerated in such a way that Broward County has become a respected economy and economic contributor to the state. We simply want to be leaders and take Broward County to the next level. We’re always going to be active in the community in as many ways as we can.
Since the transformative turnaround of the franchise, we have the goal of becoming a destination franchise. We want Broward County to be one of the top counties in the nation. We have a great global platform, so the more that we’re able to promote our franchise, the more exposure Broward County is able to receive and the more people we can attract to the area. We’re in the process of building a new state-of-the-art practice and community ice facility, the Baptist Health IcePlex in the heart of Fort Lauderdale, where community members can enjoy a variety of youth and adult hockey programs, public skating, and figure skating. The Panthers’ official practice rink will feature stadium seating for up to 1,000 fans during practices. We will be revitalizing an institutional building called War Memorial Auditorium that has deteriorated over the last several years. Our owners invested $65 million of privately funded money to revitalize the facility and install a 3,800 person music venue where more intimate concerts and events can be held. It has been a massive investment and captures the ways in which the franchise seeks to innovate the industry.
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