Storm

Storm receives an infusion of cash

Robert Nucci believes the Arena Football team can become profitable.

By DAVID MURPHY, Times Staff Writer
Published December 14, 2007

Robert Nucci, who purchased 51 percent of the Storm, will increase the franchise's marketing.
	[Brian Cassella | Times]

TAMPA - For all the accolades, championship banners and playoff victories the Tampa Bay Storm has accumulated in its more than 20 years of existence, there is one arena in which the team hasn't experienced overwhelming success: the bottom line.

But at a glitzy news conference at the St. Pete Times Forum on Thursday, the franchise introduced new majority owner Robert Nucci as a man who can turn the team into a force both as a business and community asset.

Nucci paid just more than $9.6-million for 51 percent of the team, according to former owner Woody Kern. And he appears willing to invest much more in marketing than Kern did.

"He thinks that he can make this thing economically sound," Storm coach and general manager Tim Marcum said; "or more sound than it has been."

The depth of Nucci's pockets isn't clear. In a court document filed last year, the 46-year-old surgeon stated his net worth at about $10.1-million.

But his wife, Kathryn, claims it is significantly more. The couple, married 12 years, is in the middle of a divorce.

This week, Kathryn's lawyer, Stanford Solomon, filed two motions, one for contempt of court. It cited Robert's purchase of the Storm as evidence he was untruthful when he claimed in October he couldn't pay her $92,500 for part of a real estate property they owned because he didn't have the money.

Solomon said Thursday he estimates the Nucci marital estate to be worth about $32-million.

Nucci declined to discuss specifics of his finances but said his wife's claims were "not true at all."

"I think that all our financials are well-documented," said Nucci, who lived in the couple's $1.8-million home in Avila before moving into a condo within walking distance of the Times Forum.

Born in New Jersey to parents who were doctors, Nucci graduated from Georgetown. He attended film school at New York University before settling on a career in medicine.

Nucci founded the Nucci Spine Institute after completing a fellowship at the Florida Neck and Back Institute in Gainesville in 1995. He started his practice in Palm Harbor before moving to Tampa in 2003.

Nucci, who was introduced at a table flanked by banners for his institute, said he first became interested in the Storm early last summer, when he attended a few games with his sons, Alexander, 8, and Gregory, 4.

Kern bought the team in 1994 for a reported $850,000 but has been looking to sell for the past five years. In 2002, the team announced it had been sold to Michigan businessman Thom Hopper, but the sale fell through when Hopper failed pay.

Everyone associated with the sale expressed confidence in Nucci's financial stability.

Arena League commissioner David Baker, who attended the news conference, said an ownership group must prove to the league it has at least $60-million in capital. Kern, who will retain 49 percent of the team, said Nucci's ownership was recently approved unanimously by the league's owners.

"The check cashed," Marcum said. "The funds are there. You do the math. You do 51 percent of any kind of number like that and you know that it's done. It's a done deal. I'm not worried about it. It's not like the last one we had in '02."

Marcum, who will remain as coach and general manager, said he expects Nucci to take a more active role in promoting the team than Kern, who lives in Texas. A new lease signed with the Times Forum in the fall runs through 2010 and contains clauses that reward Nucci for ticket sale benchmarks.

David Murphy can be reached at dmurphy@sptimes.com or 352 848-1407.

[Last modified December 13, 2007, 23:02:09]