Cactus League baseball hit a new attendance record of 1.68 million fans this spring with one game to play today at Salt River Fields.

Average attendance was up for 14 of the 15 teams in the Valley — it dipped 1.23 percent for the Colorado Rockies — and overall attendance increased 5.6 percent over last year’s record season, according to preliminary figures from the Cactus League Association.

The Arizona Diamondbacks sold out 14 of their 16 games at Salt River Fields and attracted 186,828 fans for 16 games.

Good weather in early March and the buzz created by slugger Albert Pujols of the Los Angeles Angels and Texas Rangers pitcher Yu Darvish boosted the box office, said Brad Curtis, association president.

“I really can’t complain,” Curtis said of the spring season. “A lot of good things happened.”

Cactus League crowds in five weeks surpassed the regular-season attendance in 2011 for three major league teams in their home markets — the Miami Marlins, Tampa Bay Rays and Oakland Athletics.

Cactus League officials say bigger crowds at the Valley’s 10 stadiums are encouraging for tourism and the economy.

“Hopefully it’s a sign that things are turning around,” said Dave Dunne, Salt River Fields general manager.

A fan survey this spring at the ballparks will measure how many visitors attended games and how much they spent during their visits.

The Cactus League Association estimates that spring baseball contributes $360 million to the local economy, a figure disputed by some economists.

Visitors last year helped push the Valley’s hotel occupancy in March to 83 percent, and that figure could be higher this year, Curtis said.

Visiting fans at the Diamondbacks game Monday against the Chicago Cubs at Salt River Fields were enjoying the sunshine despite some gusty winds.

John Hertko, a frequent spring visitor from Joliet, Ill., said he typically attends two to three games during his visits.

“They know how to do it right down here with the tourism,” said the retired chiropractor. “And the weather here is No. 1.”

A group of tailgating Wisconsin fans who winter in Apache Junction turned up for their first visit to Salt River Fields.

“Tell them to lower ticket prices and beer prices, and we’ll all come out to more games and drink more beer,” said Harold Reader, 73, of Rhinelander, Wis.

Cactus League prices are up, but fans such as Robert Scott of the San Tan Valley area said the tickets are still a bargain compared to regular-season games at Chase Field.

The Diamondbacks led the Cactus League and Florida’s Grapefruit League with an average attendance of 11,677, said Dunne. That is up 4.6 percent from last year.

The Angels at Tempe Diablo Stadium saw the biggest increase with 47 percent more fans this season.

The six East Valley teams — the Diamondbacks, Angels, Cubs, Rockies, San Francisco Giants, and Athletics — accounted for about 52 percent of 15-team league attendance.

But all nine of the West Valley teams reported attendance increases, led by the Cleveland Indians with a 25 percent jump.

Curtis said he would like to see attendance improve for the Indians and Cincinnati Reds at Goodyear Ballpark, the Milwaukee Brewers at Maryvale Baseball Park and Athletics at Phoenix Municipal Stadium. All four teams averaged fewer than 5,800 fans per game.

The league average was 7,420, in 227 games up 8.3 percent from a year ago.

The Milwaukee Brewers will remain at Maryvale Stadium for at least three more years and possibly longer under an agreement with Phoenix officials.

Pending approval by the Phoenix City Council and the Arizona Sports and Tourism Authority, the city would add $1.5 million in improvements to the stadium and training complex, at 51st Avenue and Indian School Road.

The Brewers, National League Central Division champions in 2011, have trained in Maryvale since 1998, when the stadium was built.

Deputy City Manager Rick Naimark said the agreement is an extension of the original 15-year deal. The council is scheduled to vote on the matter at its meeting on Tuesday.

“We’ve been working on this for two years, and we are delighted to be there now,” Naimark said. “This is a great deal that speaks for itself.”

Phoenix had feared the Brewers could move after this season, but the agreement would put that off for three years before the team could exercise its escape clause.

Bob Quinn, executive vice president of the team, said he thought the trade-off of the Brewers’ ongoing commitment for the improvements was fair. He said discussions would continue about further improvements and a longer commitment.

“The facility and layout are fine, and our baseball people are happy,” he said. “We need some upgrades in the clubhouse and the weight rooms.”

Naimark said the deal was important for the city, especially the western part.

“Maryvale Stadium is a linchpin for west-side development and improvement,” Naimark said. “The statistics show it has worked. Brewers fans contribute $3 million a year in direct spending.”

Councilman Daniel Valenzuela, who represents the area, said the team also generates $300,000 in taxes.

“The stadium and the Brewers are points of pride for the area,” he said. “I am thrilled that they have not played their last game in Maryvale.”

Maryvale finished 13th out of 15 teams in attendance last year. This year, attendance is higher, and the Brewers are ninth, according to Cactus League statistics. It would be the first year in the past five in which attendance has grown.

Year after spring training year, the pendulum tied to Arizona’s Cactus League seems to find itself swinging the other way. One year it’s the players front and center; that was the case this month – and in the East Valley in particular – with the arrival of future Hall of Famer Albert Pujols to Tempe Diablo Stadium.

The next year: It’s the newest spring training complex becoming the crown jewel of preseason play.

As the 2012 spring campaign nears its conclusion and fans already begin planning for 2013 and beyond, it appears the latter may be set to take shape again – and again be centered in the East Valley. Work on the Chicago Cubs future spring home is underway, and it’s also possible that the Cactus League may tip the scales on Florida’s Grapefruit League by luring another team or two for yet another new facility. That prospect would open the door for Arizona to host the majority of big league teams for what has become both a tourist draw and a local economic engine – benefitting the state by an estimated $350 million a year or more, according to Cactus League statistics.

Any way you look at it, Arizona’s baseball future is in a good position — one that appears to benefit the East Valley more with each new season as well.

2012 game changers

As season tickets in Anaheim, Calif., have increased by 4,000 from a year ago, the Angels’ spring home has also reaped the benefits of two newly-acquired superstars — first baseman Albert Pujols and pitcher C.J. Wilson, widely considered this year’s top free agent slugger and pitcher, respectively.

Spring training ticket sales for the Angels jumped 19 percent from a year ago and Tempe Diablo Stadium has had more than double the number of sellouts this season (from four to nine) compared to 2011, according to Ryan Cavinder, a media relations representative for the Angels.

“We’ve really seen a change this year,” Cavinder said. “We’ve never sold out that many games before.”

Overall, ticket sales for Cactus League games are up 176,000 — a 15 percent jump from this point a year ago, according to Brad Curtis, president of the Cactus League.

Cubs setting off chain reaction

The Chicago Cubs are annually one of the Cactus League’s top attendance draws, a scenario only likely to get stronger as the Cubs leave Mesa’s Hohokam Stadium (and nearby practice facility Fitch Field) for a new $99 million complex at Riverview Park, near Dobson Road and the Loop 202, in time for the 2014 season. With the recent closure of Riverview Golf Course, dirt is beginning to turn and trees are being removed to make room for what will be practice fields and a miniature version of Chicago’s iconic Wrigley Field.

While the Cubs still have one more year left at Hohokam, the attention in 2013 is undoubtedly going to be on the nearby construction of the spring training’s newest palace.

But that could be just the start of the next great stadium race, and the East Valley could be the prime recipients of such a seismic shift.

A’s, Brewers may be on the move

With the Cubs moving up the road, the Oakland A’s are in exclusive talks with Mesa to become the primary tenant at both Hohokam and Fitch.

A deal between the A’s and the city could emerge as early as April, Mesa Mayor Scott Smith said.

The team has used the negotiation period to watch how the city’s Hohokam Stadium and Fitch Park have served the Chicago Cubs during spring training. They’ve identified improvements they’d like, most of which are at Fitch, Smith said.

Oakland’s agreement with Phoenix expires at the end of the 2014 spring training session.

The Milwaukee Brewers are also weighing their options, and may consider leaving Phoenix’s Maryvale Baseball Park for a potential 80-acre site in Scottsdale or one on the Gila River Indian Community in Chandler. The Brewers, who have until April 14 to exercise the first of three two-year club options to extend their Maryvale lease, wouldn’t be the first team to try and play ball with Gila River; it was proposed that the Cubs move to a site near Wild Horse Pass and Interstate 10 in Chandler, but the voter passage of Proposition 420 in November 2010 kept the Cubs in Mesa.

Teams continue, however, to look for close proximity to a highway, lots of land for future growth, and interested areas to build a stadium — a formula that helped the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community bring the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies to Scottsdale with last year’s debut, Salt River Fields.

The Brewers are continuing talks with Phoenix this week to discuss possible upgrades to Maryvale, where they’ve spent each spring since leaving Chandler’s Compadre Stadium in 1998.

Curtis downplayed any talks that the Brewers have had with Scottsdale and Gila River, noting that when a team nears the end of its lease with a city, it is commonplace to put together a “wish list” of upgrades; it’s also common to visit other locales to discuss the possibility of resting their gloves in a new location.

However, Curtis added that spring training facilities accommodating one team are becoming a thing of the past.

It isn’t known at this time whether the Brewers would share any new site with a second team, but it’s probable if a new facility is built.

Peoria Sports Complex, Surprise Stadium, Camelback Ranch in Glendale, Goodyear Stadium and Salt River Fields in Scottsdale all have been built in Arizona in the last decade and accommodate two teams.

“It is unlikely that anyone would build a new facility for one small market team,” Curtis said. “Let’s face it, a one-team facility is rare these days.”

Two Fla. teams scouting new Ariz. digs?

Not citing which teams, Curtis said he knows of two Grapefruit League teams that have visited Arizona to talk to cities who have put together proposals.

Reports have said the Toronto Blue Jays and the Houston Astros have expressed an interest in leaving Florida for Arizona, but Curtis said that any preliminary discussions are confidential.

“Teams from the Grapefruit League visit Arizona for a number of reasons,” Curtis said. “One, everyone wants the new stadiums and the best of the best — and Arizona has the most state-of-the-art stadiums. They also want to see what the Cactus League is about and if there’s space out here for them. But they also use us to work one community against the other in trying to get what they want in Florida.

“These things don’t happen overnight,” Curtis added of any new teams coming. “Bonds have to pass and financing has to be arranged.”

But for now, the A’s and Brewers looking to relocate locally may be enough to change the game.

Zuzette Kisto, a spokeswoman for the Gila River Indian Community, said this week the community has no comment about the status of talks with the Brewers.

Although Brewers executive vice president of finance and administration Bob Quinn could not be reached directly for comment, he said in a team-issued news release last week that the club remained open to all of its options, including staying put at Maryvale.

Spring training holds sunshine, expectations for things to come — and maybe even the secret to a long life.

At least that’s what one Seattle couple say.

Joe and Marion Epler both turned 101 last month. Soon after, they boarded a plane and headed south for spring training.

Joe has been watching the Seattle Mariners train since the Peoria Sports Complex opened almost 20 years ago, and Marion has been coming for nearly that long.

The couple, who get a kick out of being the oldest residents in their Seattle retirement home, are avid Mariners fans, taking in about five games each spring-training season.

“We enjoy the people, weather, and the baseball is always in high gear,” Joe said.

Arizona’s Cactus League features 15 professional baseball teams training in eight Valley cities every March. Joe said Arizona may have something to do with their longevity. “You can’t say that it hasn’t helped.”

He first came to Arizona to watch the Mariners as Peoria was just opening the West Valley’s first ballpark in 1994.

Joe proudly recounts how he became the first guest of La Quinta Inn and Suites, not far from the ballpark.

He’d bought an apparently bogus spring-training package that included a room at the hotel, which he arrived to find nearing completion but not yet opened. Fortunately, the city granted the hotel its license, and the hotel opened later that day.

Soon after, Marion began traveling with him. The couple married when both were 86.

They grew fond of the “contrast to Seattle” and purchased a vacation home in Sun City when they were 91.

Spring training is a tradition for many folks in other parts of the country, a way to escape colder weather. But Peoria spokesman Bo Larsen was particularly impressed by the Eplers.

“It’s an inspiration to see this couple use spring training and baseball as their way to stay young and agile,” he said.

The couple get to the games a few hours early to watch the players practice. They like to size up unfamiliar faces and get a sense of how they’re doing.

“Once in awhile, we can find our new favorite players,” Joe said.

Seeing the Mariners hit home runs isn’t too shabby, either, he said.

Baseball is more than a sport; it’s a pastime that becomes an important part of people’s lives, said Mariners spokeswoman Rebecca Hale, who noted the team appreciates such loyal fans.

Baseball isn’t the only activity for the spry centenarians.

They took a cruise around the world at 90, and at age 96, Joe traveled to the Dominican Republic, where he’d served in the Peace Corps in the 1960s.

“If you keep moving and keep your mind and body active, it helps a lot,” he said.

As for whether they will return next spring, Joe said it is a good possibility.

“We’ll plan on it and see what happens,” he said.

Sticker shock has invaded the Cactus League.

Or maybe you haven’t purchased an $11 bottle of beer at Salt River Fields.

Or recoil in horror attempting to buy a spot in the grass at Scottsdale Stadium.

“A lawn seat for 33 dollars?” a Giants’ fan wrote in astonishment. “Does that come with the lawn as well?”

Bounce around the Cactus League in 2012, you’ll notice a change in tone. It feels more mercenary and less Mayberry, USA. Four of the 10 stadiums have been constructed in the past 10 years, with blueprints being drafted for another in Mesa. These are shiny, beautiful engines of commerce. The Diamondbacks’ new facility is the best in the business, seducing blissful patrons into states of reckless spending.

The other day, my daughter wondered why the small bag of cheese popcorn ($5) was in a much smaller container than the small bag of kettle corn ($4). Seizing a chance to teach her the fine art of price gouging, we approached the woman in charge.

“It costs a lot of money to make the cheese popcorn,” she snapped.

Oh, right.

In the evolution of the Cactus League, we have seen both the end of Tucson and the end of quaintness. The ballparks are still small parks. The players are still within arm’s reach, and generally friendlier this time of year. But the prices have soared dramatically.

The good seats are hard to find for under $20, especially at the newer venues. Home-plate box seats at Camelback Ranch can cost $44. The Giants are so hawkish that rates fluctuate on demand, where you can pay $33 for that lawn seat if you pick the wrong day.

For decades, attending Cactus League games ranked among the best values in sports. The tickets were wonderfully underpriced. Of the 1.6 million fans who attend games every season, some 57 percent are tourists. For the rest of us, these sun-kissed games were once a perk of residency.

“Now, I think we’ve gone too far in the other direction,” Diamondbacks President Derrick Hall said. “But like most teams, we don’t have total control over pricing. That relies with the municipality or the owner of the building.”

Not that many are complaining. Record crowds continue to support exhibition baseball, propping up our economy by ignoring the mark-up. The Diamondbacks are actually trending ahead of last year’s inaugural season in Scottsdale.

In 2011, the Cactus League’s economic impact was estimated at $357 million, and if the weather holds, this season could be off the charts.

“Are you sitting down?” said Cactus League President Brad Curtis. “I just saw the numbers, and through 17 dates, we’re about 200,000 (people) ahead of last year’s total, which was a record. I saw that and thought, ‘Oh my God.’

“As for the pricing, if you’re sitting 40 feet from the grass in a Cactus League ballpark, it’s still going to be 50 percent less than going to a Major League park. So everyone is happy. I just got an e-mail from a couple in Oklahoma who just loved their experience. This is a win-win for everyone.”

Still, it’s starting to feel like winter rates on local golf courses, where only the visitors can justify the cost of high-end inventory. And for the Diamondbacks, this can be a tricky proposition.

Their highest-priced ticket is $26. The team recently fought the capitalistic urge of their partners to increase parking fees from $5 to $7. After all, they can’t beat up their fans too badly, lest they be held in contempt once the regular season begins.

“Teams know the out-of-town fan is captured,” Hall said. “We’re in a different situation. Our fans live here. This isn’t vacation money they’re spending.”

Besides, spring training is supposed to be about romance, not revenue. It’s an idea, not a business. It’s a time when baseball gives back, not extorts. And maybe the solution is simple: Give us residents 40 percent-off cards on all tickets, grub and gear. The snowbirds and tourists can make up the difference.

For more than 18,000 baseball fans who attended the first ever Scottsdale Baseball Festival kick-off to spring training last month, the event was about their favorite Cactus League teams, food and fun.

To those of us working to promote greater cooperation among host cities and teams, it was a monumental icebreaker that could someday be remembered as the opening we needed to help us finally achieve a stronger, more stable baseball tourism industry.

Over the years, Cactus League boosters have tried to get the baseball clubs and their sponsor communities to work together to promote attendance and excitement in March. But the level of competition and political wrangling between the parties involved always got in the way.

That is until the City of Scottsdale, the Scottsdale Charros, the Cactus League Baseball Association, several Valley cities and 14 of the 15 teams that train here fought through those roadblocks to share common ground one weekend in February.

The result for fans was more than two days of baseball nirvana. The result for boosters was the moment we’ve been waiting for.

Each year, Cactus League box office windows are left with about 900,000 unsold tickets to games in March. That’s nearly one million missed opportunities to attract more tourists, sell more hotel rooms, dish more restaurant meals, hawk more beer and souvenirs and collect more city and state sales tax.

The level of cooperation that finally surfaced in Scottsdale proves what we believe can happen when we work together. It provides a glimpse of what we could achieve if we spent the rest of this year working on an even bigger festival next February. It is a roadmap for how to sell those unsold tickets at ballparks from Goodyear to Mesa, Scottsdale to Surprise.

Obviously putting more fans in the stands would help boost everyone’s bottom line. Taxpayers who own the ballparks will see a better return on their investment. The economy will benefit from the additional support for businesses and their employees. And the teams will see highly profitable merchandise and concessions sales go up.

To the Cactus League, cooperation means more stability and support for the long term health and well-being of an industry that generates at least $362 million in economic activity each spring season.

Soon a group will begin to plan next year’s festival. Certainly the success of the inaugural event will provide a great springboard for a follow-up affair in 2013.

But those who benefit must make certain not to derail those efforts. All fifteen Major League teams and the nine local governments that host them must make certain to consider the historic nature of what happened in Scottsdale last month and cooperate to make sure it happens again… and again.

By working together we can leverage this small but mighty example that is the Scottsdale Baseball Festival to help make our Cactus League industry stronger , boost our tourism economy and ensure ours remains the preferred of baseball’s two spring training circuits.

Cubs Chairman Tom Ricketts led the event, presenting the family with a photo taken in Chicago of a message that appeared recently in Brinton’s honor on the famous Wrigley Field Marquee. Ricketts also made a donation of $2500 to the Play Ball Experience project, Brinton’s dream for a permanent Cactus League museum in the Valley.

The highlight of the event occurred in center field where Brinton’s three oldest grandsons, Mason Brinton, 10; Tanner Brinton, 7, and Powell Glover, 7, raised a flag in his honor.

The flag, hand-made this week in Mesa, featured a design similar to the flags that fly over Wrigley Field’s bleachers honoring Cubs’ Hall of Fame players.

The Cubs presented the flag to the family after the game today.

The ceremony also featured comments from Brinton’s widow, Nanette, and a first pitch thrown by the next biggest Cubs fan in the family, Brinton’s son, Tate.

Brinton passed away unexpectedly last October, just days after the Cubs and the City of Mesa reached an agreement to stay in Mesa for another 30 years. Brinton was a tireless champion of the effort to make sure his beloved team did not leave the Cactus League, where it first arrived in 1952.

For more than 20 years, Greg Forwerck’s focus has been “getting the shot” for a hobby that isn’t just for kids anymore, and hasn’t been for a long time.
Since 1989, Forwerck has been taking pictures of professional baseball players for the New York-based Topps Co. Topps has been printing baseball cards on squares of cardboard for slightly more than 60 years, since the rookie year of Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays in 1951.

Many of the photos on the cards ranging from baseball’s one-season wonders to superstars have been taken at the practice fields or spring training ballparks in the East Valley such as Tempe Diablo Stadium or Mesa’s Hohokam Park. Included in the mix were the 1969 and ‘70 Topps cards of the Seattle Pilots taken at Tempe Diablo with the Tempe Buttes in the background and many of the late 1960s and early 1970s cards of the Oakland A’s taken at long gone Rendezvous Park in Mesa.

Armed with a Canon camera and a 400mm lens, Forwerck scans the field to capture a player in the “moment.” Of the 1,200 players he shoots during a spring training season, about 600 of them will appear on cards included in sets available in retail big box stores. Overall, Forwerck estimates that about 20,000 of his pictures have appeared on trading cards.

“I think about the player and what he does and how I can make him look best,” Forwerck said. “I love it if I can catch a guy laughing or smiling. I like to catch that stuff because you often don’t get to see it during a game.”

At Tempe Diablo on Friday, Forwerck said he planned to focus on superstar Albert Pujols of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, perhaps the top drawing card in spring training after leaving the defending champion St. Louis Cardinals last year. Forwerck also conversed with first-year Angels pitcher C.J. Wilson, a photography buff, and shot some pictures of Angels top prospect Mike Stout stepping out of the batter’s box. Starting with a “hit list,” Forwerck said he works through a list of those he needs to photograph; the players are often alerted with a sign inside the clubhouse.

Unlike the salaries of Major Leaguers themselves, the contract a player gets from Topps begins with a $5 check. And if he later appears on a card, the player receives $500 — a sum that has been in place for decades.

Topps was founded as the Topps Chewing Gum Co. by brothers Abram, Ira, Philip, and Joseph Shorin in 1938, and in 1947 they introduced Bazooka Bubblegum. But it wasn’t until 1951 that Topps started putting baseball cards in packages to help sell the gum.

Like Forwerck did himself as a kid growing up in Michigan hoping to find a card of Detroit Tigers superstar Al Kaline, kids used to be able to purchase wax packs of the cards that included a pink slab of bubblegum for a nickel at the corner store in hopes of completing a set of 600-plus cards by the end of the season or at least get their favorite player.

Now, Topps releases a set in December in time for Christmas and then another one in time for opening day and has many subsets in-between that cost nearly $50.
If a player has a good year, he might land a special deal from Topps to do a special limited edition card. Some limited edition cards feature a piece of the player’s bat or uniform and are placed in select packs.

“It’s what drives the market and pushes kids to buy the cards,” Forwerck said. “I think fans want to be closer to the game. It’s still popular to collect trading cards of your favorite player. I don’t think that’s going to go away. People get the cards hoping to get them signed. A lot of people keep them and pass them on.”

Arizona’s Cactus League in its first week was abuzz with a bee-attack game delay at Salt River Fields, but more than a quarter-million fans swarmed to the ballparks as well.

Attendance for the first 43 games through Thursday averaged 5,965 fans, up 2.5 percent from the first 44 games last year over eight days.

A strong opening weekend with two sellouts at Salt River Fields for the Colorado Rockies and Arizona Diamondbacks and one at Scottsdale Stadium for the San Francisco Giants boosted the league’s box office. All three games involved the Diamondbacks.

“It’s a good start if we’re up 2 percent so far because everybody is talking about selling out the back end of their (schedule),” said Brad Curtis, Cactus League Association president. “I’m always worried about the first week and a half.” Instead, he said teams already are expecting to sell out more games in the final weeks.

Attendance on Friday for eight games was 61,662, the best day so far at the box office.

Total attendance through Friday was 318,179.

The Cactus League is coming off a season of record attendance with more than 1.59 million fans showing up at the 10 Valley stadiums in 2011. League officials hope to match that and could get an assist from better weekend scheduling for the league’s 15 teams.

Ten games are scheduled for today and nine on Sunday, with split squads allowing the league to have more than the typical schedule of six to eight games per day.

Major League Baseball has done a good job of adding weekend games, which attract the largest crowds, Curtis said.

“We talked to them and said, ‘This is silly to have an empty stadium on a weekend,’ ” he said.

Near sellouts are likely today, including at Salt River Fields for the Diamondbacks and Seattle Mariners, and at Scottsdale Stadium where the Giants host the Milwaukee Brewers.

Lawn seats at Scottsdale Stadium are listed at $33 because the team’s ticket prices are based on demand. Weekday tickets for lawn seats are less than a third of that price.

Curtis said a fan called him to complain about the Giants pricing.

“I told him he could go to Salt River Fields and get a lawn seat for $8 or go out to Goodyear and get a seat right behind the dugout” for less than $33, Curtis said, adding that fans have 10 stadiums to choose from.

This year’s spring schedule includes about 230 games, with just less than 20 percent of the games played through Thursday.

The season ends April 4.

Arizona’s Cactus League got a boost last week when the San Diego Padres and Seattle Mariners renewed 20-year lease agreements to play at the Peoria Sports Complex through 2034.

But the deal, which hinged on $48 million in facility improvements, did not hide the league’s ongoing difficulty in paying for rapid expansion from eight to 15 teams over the past decade.

The Arizona Sports and Tourism Authority is short $165 million needed to pay for stadium improvements because tourism-tax revenue declined sharply during the recession. And no solution to the funding shortfall has emerged.

That leaves Glendale and Goodyear on the hook for $63 million and $43 million in stadium costs, respectively, that city leaders had expected would be paid by the Arizona Sports and Tourism Authority.

“It won’t hit its goals before it sunsets in 2031,” Cactus League Association President Brad Curtis said of the regional sports authority. “A lot of things have changed and we’re looking for new funding sources.”

Spring baseball has never been more popular in the Valley, with 10 stadiums, 15 teams and about 230 games that attracted a record 1.59 million fans last year. But luring five teams from Florida and two from Tucson has left the host cities with tens of millions of dollars in bills to pay.

Meanwhile, the authority has deferred payments and told Glendale and Goodyear it cannot meet its previous commitment by 2031, when the municipal corporation ceases collecting tourism taxes and funneling them to the Cactus League.

Tourism tax funds league

Proposition 302 created the authority in 2000 to build and operate the University of Phoenix Stadium, fund $205 million in Cactus League facilities and pay for tourism marketing and youth-sports facilities. The authority collects a 1 percent hotel tax and 3.25 percent tax on rental cars in Maricopa County.

The authority’s tourism-tax revenue peaked in 2007 at $24 million, fell to $20.7 million in 2010 and should hit $22.2 million by the end of this fiscal year, said Tom Sadler, authority president.

“We are recovering, but it’s a slow process,” he said.

Cactus League stakeholders agree that new revenue streams are needed to maintain the long-term viability of spring baseball in Arizona. Cactus League visitors generate an estimated $350 million for the state’s economy, according to a league study.

But with a tentative economic recovery and tourism taxes just now starting to pick up, no one is saying just what that solution might be.

“I don’t see anything changing for two years,” said Curtis, adding that he is working through some options but is not yet ready to disclose his ideas.

Sadler was also hesitant to offer specifics.

“I don’t want to be elusive, but we have talked about some of the low-hanging fruit of extending (the tax) and then dismissed it,” he said.

Meantime, the Cactus League is working to foster more cooperation between teams and host cities to enhance marketing and fill seats leaguewide, said Robert Johnson, a political consultant and Cactus League advocate.

“We have about 2.5 million seats in 10 stadiums over 30 days,” he said of the spring schedule. “We leave about 900,000 seats at the box office. Let’s sell those first.”

That would generate significant new revenue from ticket, concession and souvenir sales, Johnson said.

Teams split on surcharge

League ties were strained two years ago when Mesa pushed state lawmakers to approve a ticket surcharge to help pay for a new Chicago Cubs stadium. Other teams and cities objected, and Mesa instead turned to its residents to approve $84 million in ballpark funding.

The Cubs are scheduled to move to a new stadium near Riverview Park, just east of the Loop 101 and Loop 202 freeway interchange, in 2014.

Meanwhile, the Oakland Athletics are considering a move from Phoenix Municipal Stadium to Mesa’s Hohokam Stadium to replace the Cubs.

Phoenix also could lose the Milwaukee Brewers, who might leave the Maryvale Baseball Park after their contract expires this year.

The authority has $46 million to pay for renovation of five stadiums over the next decade. That includes $6.7 million for Maryvale, $11.2 million for Peoria, $3.7 million for Phoenix Muni, $8.2 million for Hohokam and $16.5 million for Surprise Stadium.

That money is due to be paid out before Glendale and Goodyear are reimbursed for their stadium projects.

The authority’s board will have to decide what will happen with money earmarked for Maryvale, Phoenix Muni and Hohokam if teams relocate, Sadler said.