Chattanooga Pulse

Written by Gary Poole
Tuesday, 31 March 2009 11:47

Frank Burke, longtime owner of the Chattanooga Lookouts, is one of those men who thinks of himself as more than a business owner but as someone who is obliged to help the community in which he lives. This is an admirable trait, and thankfully not unique among many Chattanooga business owners. The willingness of the local business community to roll up their sleeves and pitch in to help is one of the things that makes Chattanooga a very nice place to live and work.

That said, one can only surmise that Burke is a bit relieved today to hear that come the end of May, all he has to do is focus on the Lookouts, and just the Lookouts. For that is when his tenure as head of Finley Stadium comes to an end, and at which point longtime Greater Chattanooga Sports Committee executive director Merrill Eckstein takes over the troubled facility.

The Stadium Corporation, which is the overseeing body for the stadium, meets today at 12:30 p.m. and then will hold a press conference at 2:00 p.m. where it is expected they will formally announce Eckstein’s assumption of control.

Opened in 1996 as a “crown jewel of the Southside”, Finley Stadium has not lived up to it’s expectations. Between continuous losing season for the UTC football Mocs, which leads to thousands of empty seats for home games, to a marked lack of other events at the facility during the off-season, the city/county owned stadium has been a money pit. Even some as gifted at marketing as Frank Burke wasn’t able to turn a profit on operations.

Frank Burker, longtime owner of the Chattanooga Lookouts, is one of those men who thinks of himself as more than a business owner but as someone who is obliged to help the community in which he lives. This is an admirable trait, and thankfully not unique among many Chattanooga business owners. The willingness of the local business community to roll up their sleeves and pitch in to help is one of the things that makes Chattanooga a very nice place to live and work.

That said, one can only surmise that Burke is a bit relieved today to hear that come the end of May, all he has to do is focus on the Lookouts, and just the Lookouts. For that is when his tenure as head of Finley Stadium comes to an end, and at which point longtime Greater Chattanooga Sports Committee executive director Merrill Eckstein takes over the troubled facility.

The Stadium Corporation, which is the overseeing body for the stadium, meets today at 12:30 p.m. and then will hold a press conference at 2:00 p.m. where it is expected they will formally announce Eckstein’s assumption of control.

Opened in 1996 as a “crown jewel of the Southside”, Finley Stadium has not lived up to it’s expectations. Between continuous losing season for the UTC football Mocs, which leads to thousands of empty seats for home games, to a marked lack of other events at the facility during the off-season, the city/county owned stadium has been a money pit. Even some as gifted at marketing as Frank Burke wasn’t able to turn a profit on operations.

Here’s hoping that Eckstein, a very capable man with immense knowledge of the sporting world and great ties with the movers and shakers in the region, will be able to accomplish what so far no one else has been able to do in the past dozen years. For Finley Stadium really should be a crown jewel, not just for the Southside but the entire city.