Des Moines will soon be home to a minor league hockey team and there’s talk a minor league Arena football team may set up shop in the capitol city. The Des Moines Menace is trying to build a new soccer stadium. Iowa Cubs owner Michael Gartner says he’s not worried the sports market in Des Moines will become too saturated. “The more the better. There’s a kind of mass mentality,” Gartner says. “For instance, when we had Arena Football before, when they had a home game on Saturday and we did, too, we would always do better than if they didn’t. When the big art shows are going on downtown, we always do better. People think ‘Let’s go downtown’ and a certain percentage will say ‘Let’s go watch the Cubs’ or say ‘Let’s go to the art show’ or ‘Let’s go to the Miller High Life bar’ or others will say ‘Let’s go watch the hockey or Arena II’ so the more that’s going on downtown, the happier the people at the Iowa Cubs are.” Gartner made his comments on Iowa Public Television.
