Hartford Business Journal

8 Hartford Business Journal • May 21, 2018 • www.HartfordBusiness.com NB Bees see higher ticket sales amid grassroots outreach Q&A talks with Brad Smith, the general manager of the New Britain Bees, which is in its third season playing in the Atlantic League, a minor-league professional baseball organization. The team is coming off a season in which its at- tendance fell by 20,000 visitors to the lowest in the league. Q. The New Britain Bees have begun their third season of play. What can fans expect this season that will be different from last year when they visit New Britain Stadium? A. Fans will notice an increase in attendance as we have ramped up our group sales efforts. Also, the Alvarium "BeerHive" has been a big early season hit with our fans. We have teamed up with the local brewery Alvarium, and turned our third base rooftop bar into a great place to watch the game and drink Alvarium beer. Brad Smith General Manager, New Britain Bees FOCUS: Business of Sports By Joe Cooper jcooper@HartfordBusiness.com T he Great Recession and its aftereffects took a major bite out of Connecticut's golf industry, forcing a number of courses to close and many others to experience declining revenues and memberships. But after years of battling difficult conditions — including changing golfer habits — the state's $638 million golf industry has finally begun to level off as course operators diversify the player experience to accommodate a new range of customers, officials said. Tom Hantke, executive direc- tor of the Con- necticut Section PGA, says course operators across the state are rethinking their marketing strate- gies to attract a new generation of players and restructuring prices to lure budget-conscious golfers. In Connecti- cut, private and public courses hosted an aver- age of 22,000 golf rounds in 2016, up 2.3 percent from 2015, mostly due to growth at public golf links, according to a recent PGA An- nual Operations Survey. Meantime, private golf clubs are trying to make the game more afford- able by lowering membership fees. Average annual membership fees in Connecticut declined 11.8 per- cent in 2016 to $7,500, the survey found. Hantke says that helped the state's private clubs grow their average member- ships by roughly 2 percent in 2016 to 280 members per club. Clubs are also focused on gen- erating more revenue from non-core services like instructional programs and club restaurants. At Rockledge Golf Club in West Hartford, for example, construction crews are putting finishing touches on a fully renovated restaurant — Rock- On Par CT's sluggish golf industry steadies amid new-age management strategies Richard Crowe, Rockledge Country Club's head PGA professional, stands above the public course's 18th hole. An overhead shot of Manchester Country Club. PHOTO | CONTRIBUTED HBJ PHOTO | JOE COOPER

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