Post by Banana Cat on Feb 28, 2012 8:19:30 GMT -5
www.news-press.com/article/20120228/SPORTS/302280018/20071031/GRANDEUR/Sports-exclusive-man-behind-Florida-Tarpons?odyssey=nav|head
Sports exclusive: The man behind the Florida Tarpons
Andrew Haines says he has learned from his mistakes and is working full force on his latest endeavor - the Florida Tarpons.
Andrew Haines is the owner of the Florida Tarpons and co-owner of the Ultimate Indoor Football League. The Tarpons are scheduled to play their first game on March 9 at Germain Arena. / Andrew West/news-press.com
Feb. 27, 2012
Written by David Dorsey
Haines, owner of the new Florida Tarpons indoor football team, must prove himself.
“If I didn’t have the failures that I’ve had, I wouldn’t be where I am now,” Haines said recently at Germain Arena in Estero, where the Tarpons held their final open tryout. “Most successful people had failures to overcome.”
The Florida Tarpons and the Ultimate Indoor Football League, which Haines also founded and co-owns, have been taking shape over the past 10 months. Last April, Haines and coach Michael Taylor announced they would be setting up shop in Fort Myers.
The Tarpons are scheduled to kick off their first game at 7:30 p.m. Friday, March 9, at Germain Arena. They will be going head-to-head against a 7:05 p.m. Boston Red Sox spring training game at the new JetBlue Park, so Haines has been hurrying. Over the next two weeks, Haines must finish filling the roster, find a quarterback, secure more team sponsorships and, perhaps most importantly, get the word out about his latest professional sports endeavor.
Haines, 33, said he has learned from the many mistakes of his youth. His most recent series of mistakes, made four years ago in Jamestown, N.Y., were big ones.
Learning lessons
In 2007, Haines founded the Mid-Atlantic Hockey League, centered around the Jamestown Vikings, which played in the Jamestown Savings Bank Arena.
“I hope Andrew learned his lessons, because they were hard ones learned,” arena general manager Michael Ferguson said. “You’re right to have a red flag pop up.”
Haines rented an old building called the Vikings Lodge, where the team’s players lived. In the middle of the 2008 season, funding for those players dried up, and the league folded before the season could end.
“Hockey was a bad decision on my part,” Haines said. “It was a bad choice. I put myself in a bad situation.”
The bad situation got worse at the end, when the unpaid players revolted, Ferguson said. Believing Haines owned instead of rented the Vikings Lodge, the players got drunk and retaliated against Haines by trashing the place, doing more than $150,000 in damage, Ferguson said, drawing national attention with a CNN report about it.
The arena had no problems getting paid, Ferguson said, as the arena controlled the revenue stream.
“We settled up at the end of the month,” Ferguson said. “We would take in those moneys and then distribute the rest to Andrew. At the end of it, we suffered $10,000 in losses, just because we didn’t get the attendance we thought we were going to get the last month. It was just the last month, to be honest. We had 1,800 out of 2,000 seats sold. From that standpoint, it was successful. The problem was, he was trying to fund the rest of the league from this facility. The other teams in his league didn’t draw like we did. He would take on one to try to pay off the other, basically.”
Haines called the hockey experiment his “biggest regret ever.”
“I didn’t make sound business decisions,” Haines said. “I made emotional decisions.”
A search of public records revealed 14 times between 1999 and 2010 that Haines had been named as owing money to a creditor, including $15,299 to the IRS in 2010.
Haines said he has settled all of his finances except with the IRS. Haines said that should change in the coming months after the latest tax season ends.
“I personally guaranteed a lot for some businesses that were unsuccessful, so I had to handle that,” Haines said. “I ran for state representative in Ohio two years ago, so all of my dirty laundry has been aired out.
“I still think the failures gave me a lot of knowledge.” (that doesn't do the people he burned along the way any good, but we're all happy he gained something from it....rolls eyes...BC)
In November, 2010, Haines garnered about 14,000 votes (31 percent) in losing as a Democratic candidate to Republican incumbent Kurt Schuring, who drew 31,793 votes (69 percent) for Ohio’s 51st District seat.
“I stopped campaigning once I started the football team,” Haines said, referring to the Canton Cougars, who played in the Canton (Ohio) Memorial Civic Center two years ago. Haines shut down that team, deciding to move his efforts to Southwest Florida.
Starting out
Haines graduated from Lampeter-Stasburg (Pa.) High School in 1997. Instead of attending college — “It’s not for everyone,” he said — he started his first business, in construction, at the age of 19. Since then, he estimated he has created more than 1,000 jobs by starting various companies.
Haines said his modus operandi has been to start a business and then flip it to investors for profit once the business got going.
Haines even tried that with the UIFL, selling it to an investor named Cecil Van Dyke last summer before buying it back from him last month. Haines co-owns the league and team with Tarpons coach Michael Taylor. (he definitely shafted Van Dyke, who didn't know what he was getting into, but never trust anyone in business, a lesson hard learned...BC)
“I felt like if we didn’t buy it back, it might have hurt our team,” Haines said. “Our team is doing too well to risk that. I love the challenges of starting up businesses.” (with no regards to the investors, associates, fans, and others burned in his wake...BC)
Haines had 39 different companies attached to his name in a review of public records. Biz Seller, Inc., Restoration Power Wash and Conquest Creative marketing are the three he is focused on right now. He plans to cross market those companies at Tarpons games.
Haines, who said he played linebacker, defensive end, tight end and fullback while earning three varsity letters at Lampeter-Stasburg High, began his first professional football endeavor in Orlando.
Haines founded the Orlando Starz in 2000, a semi-pro football team that played outdoors. He said he sold that team for $15,000 in 2004. In 2005 he moved to Richmond, Va., where he founded the Richmond Bandits and the American Indoor Football League. There, Haines connected with Taylor, who coached the Bandits to a league title. Haines still wears the championship ring from that season.
That Haines has bounced from city to city, from venue to venue, didn’t bother Germain Arena vice president of event programming Sammy Wallace.
Wallace called arena managers who dealt with Haines last year. All of them gave favorable reports, Wallace said.
Wallace received a number of overtures from various indoor football leagues looking to find a home at Germain Arena. Haines and the UIFL stood out in a positive way, Wallace said. The Florida Firecats of the arenafootball2 league used Germain Arena from 2001-09. The af2 since has gone on hiatus.
“Indoor football leagues are a little in disarray,” Wallace said. “We were trying to find one that had some upside and would grow. I haven’t seen anything to lead me to believe that they’re not doing the right things.
“I think they’re getting out into the community and meeting people and trying to run their business the right way. We’ve had no issues at all. Everything has been pretty good up to this point. They’re on the right track. I think they’re doing the right things here in this market. We’re looking forward to having football here again.”
Moving forward
Haines said his vagabond days have come to an end. He and wife Leah — they married when Andrew was 18 — relocated to Fort Myers with their 14-year-old daughter and 8-year-old son for the long run.
“I’m really trying to make this place a home,” Haines said. “That’s what this feels like. Being in the sun every day doesn’t hurt.”
The Tarpons have sold about 700 season tickets so far, Haines said, despite limited advertising money.
Bob Pollack, 64 and a Fort Myers resident and practicing psychiatrist, bought four season tickets.
“I like the competition,” Pollack said of why he bought them. “I like the fun. If you lose, it makes you try harder to win. That’s what life is all about.”
As the aspiring players worked out behind him, Haines said they should be proud of their new team and league. The players who make the Tarpons will receive free housing at local hotels, free food via a catering company and restaurant vouchers and $50 to $400 per game, depending on their experience and talent level.
“We’ve done everything we said we were going to do since our first press conference,” Haines said. “I’m a positive type of guy. People here know the excitement that comes with indoor football. People who come to the games don’t complain about not having fun.”
Andrew Haines says he has learned from his mistakes and is working full force on his latest endeavor - the Florida Tarpons.
Andrew Haines is the owner of the Florida Tarpons and co-owner of the Ultimate Indoor Football League. The Tarpons are scheduled to play their first game on March 9 at Germain Arena. / Andrew West/news-press.com
Feb. 27, 2012
Written by David Dorsey
What: Ultimate Indoor Football League teamAndrew Haines, with about 40 aspiring athletes running pass routes behind him, has the same task ahead of him that they do.
Home: Germain Arena, Estero
Season tickets: Packages start at $42, available at team headquarters, 13723 Jetport Commerce Parkway, Suite 13, Fort Myers
Single-game tickets: Start at $7, available at Germain Arena
Season opener: 7:30 p.m. Friday, March 9 at Germain Arena
Info: Florida Tarpons, 225-6374
Online: floridatarpons.com, uiflfootball.com
Haines, owner of the new Florida Tarpons indoor football team, must prove himself.
“If I didn’t have the failures that I’ve had, I wouldn’t be where I am now,” Haines said recently at Germain Arena in Estero, where the Tarpons held their final open tryout. “Most successful people had failures to overcome.”
The Florida Tarpons and the Ultimate Indoor Football League, which Haines also founded and co-owns, have been taking shape over the past 10 months. Last April, Haines and coach Michael Taylor announced they would be setting up shop in Fort Myers.
The Tarpons are scheduled to kick off their first game at 7:30 p.m. Friday, March 9, at Germain Arena. They will be going head-to-head against a 7:05 p.m. Boston Red Sox spring training game at the new JetBlue Park, so Haines has been hurrying. Over the next two weeks, Haines must finish filling the roster, find a quarterback, secure more team sponsorships and, perhaps most importantly, get the word out about his latest professional sports endeavor.
Haines, 33, said he has learned from the many mistakes of his youth. His most recent series of mistakes, made four years ago in Jamestown, N.Y., were big ones.
Learning lessons
In 2007, Haines founded the Mid-Atlantic Hockey League, centered around the Jamestown Vikings, which played in the Jamestown Savings Bank Arena.
“I hope Andrew learned his lessons, because they were hard ones learned,” arena general manager Michael Ferguson said. “You’re right to have a red flag pop up.”
Haines rented an old building called the Vikings Lodge, where the team’s players lived. In the middle of the 2008 season, funding for those players dried up, and the league folded before the season could end.
“Hockey was a bad decision on my part,” Haines said. “It was a bad choice. I put myself in a bad situation.”
The bad situation got worse at the end, when the unpaid players revolted, Ferguson said. Believing Haines owned instead of rented the Vikings Lodge, the players got drunk and retaliated against Haines by trashing the place, doing more than $150,000 in damage, Ferguson said, drawing national attention with a CNN report about it.
The arena had no problems getting paid, Ferguson said, as the arena controlled the revenue stream.
“We settled up at the end of the month,” Ferguson said. “We would take in those moneys and then distribute the rest to Andrew. At the end of it, we suffered $10,000 in losses, just because we didn’t get the attendance we thought we were going to get the last month. It was just the last month, to be honest. We had 1,800 out of 2,000 seats sold. From that standpoint, it was successful. The problem was, he was trying to fund the rest of the league from this facility. The other teams in his league didn’t draw like we did. He would take on one to try to pay off the other, basically.”
Haines called the hockey experiment his “biggest regret ever.”
“I didn’t make sound business decisions,” Haines said. “I made emotional decisions.”
A search of public records revealed 14 times between 1999 and 2010 that Haines had been named as owing money to a creditor, including $15,299 to the IRS in 2010.
Haines said he has settled all of his finances except with the IRS. Haines said that should change in the coming months after the latest tax season ends.
“I personally guaranteed a lot for some businesses that were unsuccessful, so I had to handle that,” Haines said. “I ran for state representative in Ohio two years ago, so all of my dirty laundry has been aired out.
“I still think the failures gave me a lot of knowledge.” (that doesn't do the people he burned along the way any good, but we're all happy he gained something from it....rolls eyes...BC)
In November, 2010, Haines garnered about 14,000 votes (31 percent) in losing as a Democratic candidate to Republican incumbent Kurt Schuring, who drew 31,793 votes (69 percent) for Ohio’s 51st District seat.
“I stopped campaigning once I started the football team,” Haines said, referring to the Canton Cougars, who played in the Canton (Ohio) Memorial Civic Center two years ago. Haines shut down that team, deciding to move his efforts to Southwest Florida.
Starting out
Haines graduated from Lampeter-Stasburg (Pa.) High School in 1997. Instead of attending college — “It’s not for everyone,” he said — he started his first business, in construction, at the age of 19. Since then, he estimated he has created more than 1,000 jobs by starting various companies.
Haines said his modus operandi has been to start a business and then flip it to investors for profit once the business got going.
Haines even tried that with the UIFL, selling it to an investor named Cecil Van Dyke last summer before buying it back from him last month. Haines co-owns the league and team with Tarpons coach Michael Taylor. (he definitely shafted Van Dyke, who didn't know what he was getting into, but never trust anyone in business, a lesson hard learned...BC)
“I felt like if we didn’t buy it back, it might have hurt our team,” Haines said. “Our team is doing too well to risk that. I love the challenges of starting up businesses.” (with no regards to the investors, associates, fans, and others burned in his wake...BC)
Haines had 39 different companies attached to his name in a review of public records. Biz Seller, Inc., Restoration Power Wash and Conquest Creative marketing are the three he is focused on right now. He plans to cross market those companies at Tarpons games.
Haines, who said he played linebacker, defensive end, tight end and fullback while earning three varsity letters at Lampeter-Stasburg High, began his first professional football endeavor in Orlando.
Haines founded the Orlando Starz in 2000, a semi-pro football team that played outdoors. He said he sold that team for $15,000 in 2004. In 2005 he moved to Richmond, Va., where he founded the Richmond Bandits and the American Indoor Football League. There, Haines connected with Taylor, who coached the Bandits to a league title. Haines still wears the championship ring from that season.
That Haines has bounced from city to city, from venue to venue, didn’t bother Germain Arena vice president of event programming Sammy Wallace.
Wallace called arena managers who dealt with Haines last year. All of them gave favorable reports, Wallace said.
Wallace received a number of overtures from various indoor football leagues looking to find a home at Germain Arena. Haines and the UIFL stood out in a positive way, Wallace said. The Florida Firecats of the arenafootball2 league used Germain Arena from 2001-09. The af2 since has gone on hiatus.
“Indoor football leagues are a little in disarray,” Wallace said. “We were trying to find one that had some upside and would grow. I haven’t seen anything to lead me to believe that they’re not doing the right things.
“I think they’re getting out into the community and meeting people and trying to run their business the right way. We’ve had no issues at all. Everything has been pretty good up to this point. They’re on the right track. I think they’re doing the right things here in this market. We’re looking forward to having football here again.”
Moving forward
Haines said his vagabond days have come to an end. He and wife Leah — they married when Andrew was 18 — relocated to Fort Myers with their 14-year-old daughter and 8-year-old son for the long run.
“I’m really trying to make this place a home,” Haines said. “That’s what this feels like. Being in the sun every day doesn’t hurt.”
The Tarpons have sold about 700 season tickets so far, Haines said, despite limited advertising money.
Bob Pollack, 64 and a Fort Myers resident and practicing psychiatrist, bought four season tickets.
“I like the competition,” Pollack said of why he bought them. “I like the fun. If you lose, it makes you try harder to win. That’s what life is all about.”
As the aspiring players worked out behind him, Haines said they should be proud of their new team and league. The players who make the Tarpons will receive free housing at local hotels, free food via a catering company and restaurant vouchers and $50 to $400 per game, depending on their experience and talent level.
“We’ve done everything we said we were going to do since our first press conference,” Haines said. “I’m a positive type of guy. People here know the excitement that comes with indoor football. People who come to the games don’t complain about not having fun.”
