Ted Sherman | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

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Saed Hindash | Star-Ledger file photo

The secret economics of the concert business

The state's sports arena in the Meadowlands opened 34 years ago with a series of sold-out concerts by Bruce Springsteen. It is slated to close in March following a series of shows by the Ringling Bros. Circus. State officials say the Izod Center is on track to lose $8.5 million this year. An examination of public records obtained by The Star-Ledger after a two-year court fight shows why the economics of show business is not a lucrative enterprise for anyone but promoters.

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Tony Avelar | AP file photo

Britney at the Izod Center

A case in point. In August 2011, Britney Spears played the Izod Center. According to documents obtained by the sports authority, she sold $1.75 million in tickets to a crowd of 15,480.

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Randy L. Rasmussen |The Oregonian

The show

The big-budget spectacle brought to the Meadowlands a show of pyrotechnics, dancers, lasers, confetti cannons, and of course Britney, then promoting her latest studio album, Femme Fatale.

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Star-Ledger file photo

Skipping the Garden for New Jersey

That Spears was on the schedule at the Izod Center at all was dictated in part by the temporary closure of Madison Square Garden for major renovations, bringing a number of big shows across the river while the work was ongoing, and greatly boosting the bottom line for the arena in the Meadowlands.

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Mark Lennihan | AP file photo

Rental and facility fees paid for Izod

The promoter of the Femme Fatale Tour paid Izod Center $80,000 in rent. The arena also received a $3.50 per ticket surcharge, representing another $59,479 in facility fees.

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Tony Kurdzuk | Star-Ledger file photo

Paying the stage crew

The Spears tour was responsible for the cost of setting up the show, the arena's stagehands and production crew, as well as the cost of backstage catering. Those expenses cost the tour $91,450 for one night. It was a big number, but the staging was more complicated than most shows, officials said.

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William Perlman | Star-Ledger file photo

Parking

Parking represented additional income for the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, which took in $66,089 in parking fees for the one-night stand.

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AP file photo

Concessions

The Izod Center made money at the snack bar, but it was not a beer crowd. Izod took in $45,599 in the sale of soda, hamburgers, nachos and other concessions. A Springsteen concert sells nearly twice as much.

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EPA file photo

The arena's costs

According to records, the concert cost the Izod Center $15,935 in security costs, as well as $9,786 paid to parking attendants, $3,896 in arena box office operations, and other expenses.

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Peter Kramer | AP file photo

Femme Fatale

Britney sold 15,274 tickets, at prices that ranged from $350 to $29.50 in the far reaches of the building. The show grossed $1.75 million in revenue, which went to the show's promoters. Out of the box office gross, records show New Jersey sales taxes netted $114,490 for the state treasury. None of that went to the Izod Center.

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Scott Eells | Bloomberg file photo

Secret givebacks

But records show much of the cost of the $80,000 rental of Izod was offset by a $5-a-ticket rebate to Live Nation paid by the sports authority, a hidden giveback that never showed up on settlement sheets often paid by arena operators as an incentive to promoters for future concerts. That cost the sports authority $76,370.

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Contra Costa Times/MCT

The bottom line

The Femme Fatale Tour left town having made $1.5 million for the evening, after stage and set-up expenses, and payment of state taxes. The sports authority's take afer all of its expenses and the rebate to promoters? Just $170,215.

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Ted Sherman | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

By the numbers

A breakout of the revenues that night, offset by the costs incurred by the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, based on documents released by the authorty.

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Tony Kurdzuk | Star-Ledger file photo

Loss of the sports teams

In addition to its thin profits in the concert business, the loss of both its professional sports teams left the sports authority with a big hole in the arena schedule. The New Jersey Devils skated away first, moving to the newly built Prudential Center in Newark in 2007. The Devils said they paid about $46,700 a game when they played at the Meadowlands.

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Noah Murray | Star-Ledger file photo

The competition

The opening of the Prudential Center in Newark not only took the Devils away from the Meadowlands. It brought heated new competition to the concert market just eight miles away. Rocker Jon Bon Jovi opened the arena.

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Tim Farrell | Star-Ledger file photo

The Nets leave

The Nets paid between $50,000 and $60,000 a game as tenants of the sports authority. After the Devils left, the NBA team bought their way out of their lease three years later, first for a temporary stay at Prudential, and then leaving the state completely to play basketball in Brooklyn at the Barclays Center. That buyout helped buoy the declining finances of the arena for at least a year.

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Henny Ray Abrams | AP file photo

Another venue looking for music

The exit of the Nets and the opening of the Barclays Center in Brooklyn added to the pressure on the Izod Center, with yet another venue vying for the same concert business.

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Charles Sykes | AP file photo

Squeezed from two sides

Sports authority officials said before Pru and Barclays, Izod would book 18 to 24 concerts a year. Now it’s eight to 10. Adam Levine from the band Maroon 5 is expected to be among the last.

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William Perlman | Star-Ledger file photo

Burning through $700,000 a month

The losses just could not be made up, said sports authority CEO Wayne Hasenbalg. “We were burning through $700,000 a month,” he said.

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Brian Donohue | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

The vote

The New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority votes to close the Izod Center arena, as chairman Michael Ferguson explains the closure as unavoidable.

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Mitsu Yasukawa | Star-Ledger file photo

The last act

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus will close the Izod Center in March. Ironically, the circus is not a big money maker for the arena. According to records examined four years ago, the Greatest Show on Earth generated $1.89 million in ticket sales. The sports authority said it made a $195,874 during the 18-show run, taking in far less on concessions because the circus is permitted to sell its own Sno-Cones, cotton candy and other sweets.