Crashing the gates.

• Position: Triad - Universities purchases Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum and Bowman Gray Stadium

Nobody said running a city should be fun, but Winston-Salem is getting out of the entertainment business for financial reasons. The City Council voted in May to sell Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum to Wake Forest University for $8 million and Bowman Gray Stadium to Winston-Salem State University for $7.1 million. The deals reflect the city's budget realities. Declining property values from the recent recession led county commissioners to raise the property-tax rate--but not by enough for revenue to break even. But it also reflects the failures of the coliseum, which, competing with larger venues in Greensboro, Charlotte and the Triangle, has struggled to book events.

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The coliseum is named for a U.S. Army medic from Winston-Salem who, in 1967, became the first living black man to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor since 1898. Leaders of the city's black community demanded that his name remain on the arena after the sale. Wake Forest agreed--without forgoing its ability to pursue naming rights. If the university seeks a corporate sponsor, the smart money is on Winston-Salem-based BB&T Corp., which already has its name on the Demon Deacons' football stadium. (It also sponsors the city's minor-league baseball stadium, but a BB&T spokesman said the bank hasn't been offered any opportunities in connection with the sale and won't speculate.) It's difficult to say what those rights are worth. PNC Arena in Raleigh, home of N.C. State basketball and professional hockey's Carolina Hurricanes, goes for about $4 million a year, but it's larger and more visited.

Though it's received less attention, the Bowman Gray sale is more complicated because there's public money--and oversight--on both sides...