Worcester Business Journal

4 Worcester Business Journal • March 28, 2016 www.wbjournal.com T he College of the Holy Cross' NCAA March Madness appear- ance and subsequent win stirred up a great deal of excitement in the city, but also put the Worcester school squarely in the national spotlight for two weeks while generating $3.2 million in revenue for the school and the associat- ed Patriot League. Wait, did you say $3.2 million? That's right. The NCAA pays out a certain amount from the tournament revenue to every team for its participa- tion in the NCAA men's basketball tour- nament. Teams earn a payout unit for every game they appear in. Since Holy Cross won its first game in the tourna- ment – by beating Southern 59-55 – and then lost its second game, the school earned two units. Teams receive payouts for the six years following their tournament appearance. This year, participation in a tournament game is worth $265,791, a figure which is expected to grow annually. So, when all the years are added up, an appearance in one tournament game is worth at least $1.59 million. Since Holy Cross appeared in two games, its tournament earnings will be at least $3.2 million. Now that still needs to be split up, but once everything is parsed among the Patriot League and other teams in the league, Holy Cross still takes home more than $1.1 million in the next six years. More than money While the money is great, being in the national spotlight for two weeks is the kind of exposure that the marketing department of a small, liberal arts school could not pay for, said Nathan Pine, Holy Cross' director of athletics. "Our entire athletic department and the entire college will see significant returns on this exposure," Pine said. "Athletics is a lens through which a lot of people first see the campus." That level of exposure has a multiply- ing effect that will play out moving for- ward, he said. Snowballing effect The goal now is to keep the ball roll- ing, Pine said. Even before the school made it to the NCAA tournament, it had begun reinvesting in sports through new facilities and will have more sportswear for all 27 sports teams through a five- year deal with German apparel manu- facturer adidas. Beyond the investment by the school and its corporate sponsor, Pine said, will be the investment by the student athletes. The challenge has been thrown down for the men's basketball team to repeat their success, but that challenge extends to all other sports at Holy Cross. "Sometimes it's a team like men's bas- ketball breaking through that starts a snowball effect," he said. n Wormtown Brewery grew 400% in first year on Shrewsbury Street Worcester's homegrown brewery is celebrating a massive growth in pro- duction in its first year at its Shrewsbury Street location, even as it prepares for a 50,000-square-foot expansion. The big news from the brewery is its massive expansion in volume from its previous location. That location, attached to Peppercorn's restaurant, maxed out at 2,800 barrels. The Shrewsbury Street location that opened a year ago was forecasted to grow production to 6,000 barrels in the first year, said managing partner David Fields, but that was outstripped before the new location opened followed by two more expansions that year. That is why Wormtown is pursuing a new 50,000-square-foot facility where it will both brew and have warehouse space. The brewery will always have the Shrewsbury Street location as its face to the public and the city, with more than 55,000 people coming through the tap room from March through December last year, but this new location will grow production potential up to 25,000 barrels a year. That production is esti- mated to come online in 2016. Worcester medical marijuana dispensary to open A medical marijuana dispensary will open in the canal district, following an aproval from the city manager to Good Chemistry of Massachusetts. The site at 9 Harrison St. in a former dance studio would house the retail facility. Good Chemistry signed a com- munity host agreement, which requires it to pay the city $450,000 over three years, plus an escalating percentage of gross sales. The firm will contribute $10,000 annually to public charities. Worcester company bought by California firm A Worcester contract researching company has been bought by a California company in a move officials say expands the presence and offerings of both companies. Blue Sky BioServices is a contract research organization (CRO) located within the Gateway Park building at 50 Prescott Street in Worcester. It was pur- chased by LakePharma, Inc. of Belmont, Calif. for an undisclosed amount. LakePharma focuses on sup- porting projects throughout the drug discovery process. Blue Sky has 30 employees and spe- cializes in research into bacterial and baculovirus systems, complementary molecular biology platforms and assay services. All employees at the location will be retained. Becker ranked fifth in the nation in game design The Princeton Review has ranked Becker College fifth in the nation when it comes to game design education. Becker rounded out the top five undergraduate colleges in the nation in which to study game design. The small college was ranked behind large schools such as first-placed University of Utah and technically focused schools such as the Rochester Institute of Technology, which placed third. Becker was the highest ranked Massachusetts school. At Becker, students have access to the state center for the digital and video game industries. Later this year, the college will open the Colleen C. Barrett Center for Global Innovation and Entrepreneurship, which will support 100 video game development students a year. Construction underway at $14M visitor center site Construction has kicked off at the site of the new visitor center that will greet people coming into Worcester from the south after an agreement was reached about who will fund the day- to-day operations. The new $14 million Blackstone Heritage Corridor Visitor Center, which will be located in Quinsigamond Village off of Route 146, will be both the most northern visitor center for the newly created Blackstone River Valley National Historical Park but it will serve a much larger role for the city. Daily management of the site will be funded by the city of Worcester and the nonprofit Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor Inc. that manages three other visitor centers in the newly created park. The targeted opening date for the location is fall of 2017. Site work is already underway with construction set to begin later this year, according to city officials. EMC dominates storage market with revenue of $2.2B Hopkinton-based EMC retained its domination of the external information storage market with over 21 percent of all worldwide sales revenue in 2015. According to the analysis of the stor- age market by Framingham's IDC, EMC secured $2.2 billion in revenue. This placed it well ahead of other com- panies with 21.5 percent of the revenue for the entire industry. It's nearest competitors were HPE with 15.1 percent of the market in rev- enue and Dell with 8.9 percent off the market with 920.7 million in revenue. REGIONAL BRIEFS Verbatim "Under current Massachusetts law, in fact, transgender people can work a full-time job at a res- taurant or other ser- vice establishment and then not be served at that very same place." Jacquelyn Ryan, a member of the Tantasqua School Committee, in a Commonwealth Magazine op-ed on transgender equality legislation. >> "I believe our legislation is going to end up getting picked up by a lot of other states and is going to become sort of the first act in a whole series of initiatives around the country." Gov. Charlie Baker, of the new opioid law, which includes a first-in-the-nation, seven- day supply limit for first-time adult prescriptions. >> "Our commitment to this merger has not changed. The FTC is simply wrong. The combination of Staples and Office Depot is good for customers." Ron Sargent, chairman and CEO of Staples, in an open letter to customers as the organi- zation continues to fight for its acquisition of Office Depot. >> In Review CENTRALMASS >> Continued on next page Holy Cross' NCAA appearance raises $3.2M, school awareness BY SAM BONACCI Worcester Business Journal Digital Editor

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