ECHL’s Brampton Beast looking to add local investors to ownership group

TORONTO – The Brampton Beast have made strides over three seasons in the ECHL. Now the team is looking for local investors to join the club in its push to take things to a higher level.

Community members will soon have an opportunity to buy a piece of the minor-league franchise, which is the second-tier affiliate of the NHL’s Montreal Canadiens. Beast owner Gregg Rosen is putting nearly half of his stake in the club up for sale with team president Cary Kaplan planning to meet with interested parties Thursday.

“We want to pick the right group,” Kaplan said. “So it’s not necessarily the person with the most money. It’s who will be excited and add value.”

Kaplan and local businesswoman Tina Larsen thought the franchise would get a boost by adding co-owners from Brampton or the Greater Toronto Area. The goal, Kaplan said Wednesday, is to find investors interested in a 5-10 per cent stake in a team he estimates is worth between $5-10 million.

Rosen, a businessman based in Kingston, Ont., owns 97 per cent of the team and Kaplan owns the remaining three per cent. Instead of an auction, the plan is to sell stakes at a fixed price with Rosen retaining a share of 51 per cent.

It’s hoped that local co-owners will help create more awareness for a team brand still in its relative infancy.

“The idea is that if we get eight to 10 … people within driving distance, they could talk it up, be active in the community,” Kaplan said. “We think it’ll help grow the ticket base and sponsorship.”

Brampton finished third in the North Division standings last season with a 40-24-3-5 record. The Beast reached the second round of the playoffs before falling to the Manchester Monarchs.

Sale plans were unveiled a couple weeks ago, a few months ahead of the 2017-18 regular season.

“We’re doing a lot of things on the business and player side, we’d like to have this locked up in a matter of weeks,” said Kaplan, who added another meeting with potential investors could be held next week. “We’re confident so far that it’s been heading in a very positive direction. There’s a lot of interest.”

The Beast have seen steady attendance growth at the 5,000-seat Powerade Centre despite a crowded hockey market in the Toronto area. The NHL’s Maple Leafs and American Hockey League’s Marlies play just down the highway and several Ontario Hockey League teams play in the southern Ontario region.

Brampton had an OHL team for 15 years before the Battalion franchise moved to North Bay in 2013 after attendance sagged.

However, the Beast drew an average of 3,106 fans at home games last season. That was up from 2,784 in 2015-16 and 2,572 in 2014-15.

Kaplan is bullish on a city that is growing rapidly and has shown it likes the ECHL brand of hockey.

“A big part of this initiative is rather than taking five more years to sell out every game, maybe this initiative allows us to sell every game out in two years,” he said. “But we’re trending in the right direction.”

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