What Is Bottom 9 Ball?

Is it the deal of the century? How did an unknown marketing expert from Florida gain total control of a $70 million stadium/catering facility without risking a penny of his own money?

In 2009 Ken Lehner incorporated Bottom 9 Ball (B9B). He is the only officer listed in the document of incorporation. This corporation supposedly has a number of "owners." What kind of an investment does an individual have to make in order to become an owner? We have no idea, in fact we have no idea if this corporation has any assets of any kind. All we do know is that the number of "owners" and their names seem to change on a regular basis.

Under the strange and one-sided lease signed by Mr. Lehner and Aaron Troodler, the secretary and executive director of the Ramapo Local Development Corporation, B9B has exclusive catering rights for all events, 12 months a year. Perhaps Ramapo Supervisor Christopher St. Lawrence, who is president and chairman of the board of the RLDC was too embarrassed to sign this document himself.

The caterer that was selected by B9B is Ovations Food Services, one of the largest catering companies in the United States. It is a subdivision of Comcast. Did Ramapo which will have to pay for utilities, maintenance, and so forth 12 months a year, get anything out of the contract that we presume was entered into between B9B and Ovations? Don’t be silly.

What share of the total catering revenues will B9B receive? We have no idea. If the town of Ramapo or the Ramapo Local Development Corporation brings business to the Ovations catering halls what will it receive? This is apparently subject to negotiation because the agreement with B9B emphasizes that Bottom 9 has sole catering rights and there’s no discussion of revenue sharing!

It is quite possible that the more profitable the catering business is the more money Ramapo will lose since it is paying the entire overhead of the catering business with no assurance that it will receive any income at all!

As we know, certain other income streams are supposed to be returned to Ramapo. These include $2 for every car parked during games. Unfortunately, B9B has not created an audit trail that guarantee that the guys running around the parking lot are actually collecting parking fees. We also have no idea how Ramapo will be protected from the skimming of these revenues.

Then we have the income stream from occupied seats. The contract with B9B stipulates that Ramapo will receive a dollar a seat. We do know that many tickets are being given away in order to encourage attendance. That is B9B’s business, not ours. But how do we know that Ramapo will get the $1 a seat to which it is entitled?

So here we have an unknown entity, with unknown financing, that has made certain financial commitments to Ramapo. Is it meeting its commitments? As Michael Castelluccio has pointed out in a recent story in these pages, the RLDC has a legal right to examine the books of B9B, but it has apparently decided not to look until the end of the year. How do we know then that the revenues due to Ramapo are not now either being either siphoned off illegally, or are being used to finance a losing operation?

Since, as far as we know, Ramapo has never looked at the books of B9B, we have no idea what business records, if any, exist. We certainly do not know if B9B is following legally mandated accounting standards (GAAP).

I personally do not believe that B9B is going to go out of business because I believe the real money making is going to be in catering, not with a losing ball club that has been forced to give tickets away like candy at Halloween. Unfortunately, any revenues that Ramapo receives from B9B catering will come from the generosity of B9B since the company has no obligation to share these revenues with Ramapo.

I suggested recently that Ramapo is going to lose $4 million a year on stadium operation and I referred readers back to a much longer analysis I published here on March 28^th. We have to remember that even though Ramapo put up all of the capital for the stadium and is paying for all maintenance and utilities, virtually all revenues will go to B9B. We may well end up with the worst of all possible scenarios. Remember, Ramapo is locked into a twenty-year contract. It is possible that we will lose huge amounts of money each year while B9B can end up doing quite well as the virtual owner of a $70 million facility.

What will happen if one of the two parties to the lease decides to walk away from the deal? There is no penalty if B9B walks, but if Ramapo kicks B9B out, the town will be subject to more than $1.5 million in consequential and other damages.

This raises another question which cannot be answered, but the question is certainly worth asking. Supervisor St. Lawrence is the President of the Ramapo Local Development Corporation as well as chairman of its board. Why did he allow his executive director, Aaron Troodler, to sign this outrageous agreement, and why has the Ramapo town board done its best first to hide the enormous cost of this stadium, and then to refuse to look at the books of the B9B?

Since I have no proof of malfeasance, I will leave it to you, kind reader, to arrive at your own conclusion.