RALEIGH, N.C. – While the Carolina Hurricanes were preparing to take on the Detroit Red Wings on opening night at PNC Arena on Friday, the team’s president and general manager Jim Rutherford, also the president of Gale Force Holdings, L.P., held a press conference with Randy Woodson, Chancellor of NC State University, to announce a new agreement to establish guidelines for the scheduling process at PNC Arena.
Rutherford and Woodson both made brief statements after signing a document outlining procedures for scheduling during NC State’s annual athletic calendar, which runs from the last week of August through the second week of March.
“We’ve had a great series of conversations,” Woodson said.
“Jim has been wonderful to work with. We’ve worked out a pathway for us to schedule that we both think benefits both of our organizations, and makes it easier for us frankly more consistent year in and year out.”
The scheduling document will go along with the current agreement set forth in operating the arena and now include the following guidelines:
- Gale Force will not schedule events on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays during the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) basketball season (January through the second week of March) prior to the release of the ACC basketball schedule.
- No later than Nov. 1 of each year, NC State will release all but three Fridays from the final week of August through the second week of March for the following academic year. For example, on Nov. 1, 2013, NC State will release 24 of the 27 Fridays from Aug. 29, 2014-March 8, 2014. Gale Force will then have until July 15 of the following year to schedule events on those Fridays. After July 15, the Fridays not used by Gale Force will be released back to NC State as available for basketball.
- No later than Nov. 15 of each year, Gale Force will provide to NC State all dates that Gale Force proposes to submit to the National Hockey League (NHL) as preferred game dates for the following NHL season. NC State will communicate Gale Force’s preferred dates to the ACC, and will copy Gale Force on that communication. If at any point the ACC identifies a potential conflict with a Gale Force preferred date, the ACC will notify NC State immediately, and NC State will communicate the conflict to Gale Force such that the date will not be requested to the NHL.
- No later than May 15 of each year, NC State will release all unbooked dates from the last week of August through Dec. 31. This will allow Gale Force to submit its final schedule request for Carolina Hurricanes games to the NHL by June 1. Following the release of the Hurricanes’ schedule, all remaining open dates during that time period will be released to NC State in order to develop its final non-conference basketball schedule. If at any time during the period between May 15 and the release of the NHL schedule, NC State wishes to confirm a non-conference basketball date, it will inform Gale Force, and Gale Force will immediately release the date to NC State, provided it is not among those dates requested by Gale Force to the NHL and Gale Force does not already have a non-Hurricanes event booked on that date.
- At Gale Force’s request, NC State will release up to three days from Nov. 1-April 1 for Gale Force to schedule major single-day events grossing in excess of $500,000. Gale Force must have final confirmation of these events, as evidenced by the event promoter setting an on-sale date for the event, no later than six months prior to the event date. Gale Force may schedule no more than one major single-day event within any 30-day period.
- Each year, NC State will release five consecutive days during the fall semester exam period in December for Gale Force to schedule Disney on Ice.
- Each year, NC State will release 7-10 consecutive days for Gale Force to schedule the Ringling Brothers Circus in February. Gale Force will notify NC State of the dates no later than July 15 of the prior year.
After what turned out to be a public relations quagmire that both parties got into over scheduling conflicts and procedures with booking the facility in early June, the arrangement put together by Woodson and Rutherford is intended to help alleviate such confusion and maximize future use of the arena accordingly.
“Thank you to the Chancellor,” Rutherford said.
“We had done the scheduling a certain way for a number of years and we got to a point as any long relationship would, sometimes you have to make adjustments, and we got to that point. Randy got involved in the talks with me and over the last few months, trying to fit it into everyone’s busy schedule, and we came to an agreement that gave the PNC Arena and Dave Olsen and his staff more flexibility to schedule all these events. Gale Force will always recognize, as says the agreement, that NC State University basketball has priority in this building and that’s what we maintained. The Chancellor has worked very hard with his staff to figure out a way that had more flexibility for Dave Olsen to work and get as many events in this building as possible.”