University of Nebraska-Lincoln Chancellor Harvey Perlman went to bed Tuesday night feeling confident the arena vote would succeed, after a senior citizen assured him many seniors voted "yes."
Nebraska Athletic Director Tom Osborne -- he wasn't so sure.
He figured the margin would be 1 or 2 percent.
"I thought it'd be a real nail-biter," Osborne said during a news conference Wednesday morning in Memorial Stadium. "I was very worried."
Osborne joked that the thing he thought might "kill" the project was the fact that he was asked to do advertisements -- and the last time he did that, it didn't turn out so well. It appeared he was making reference to his unsuccessful Republican gubernatorial bid in 2006.
Osborne said some people didn't understand that UNL would have dropped out of the project and spent about $50 million upgrading and retrofitting the Devaney Sports Center, and the city likely would not have been able to do the project without a major tenant and the Husker name to attract sponsors and advertisers.
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"There wasn't any Plan B as far as we're concerned," Osborne said.
Instead, the university will spend about $20 million upgrading Devaney.
Perlman said the potential to help the Husker basketball program was about third on his top 10 list of reasons he was excited about the election outcome. He said the project will help the economy and keep young people in Lincoln.
"I couldn't be more happy with the result," he said.
Osborne agreed the election was "somewhat" about a new home for Husker basketball but "more about the city."
He said a major hotel developer called him Tuesday and said he'd build a hotel if the vote was favorable. Another friend said his son and friends would start a business in Lincoln.
The agreement between the city and UNL has the university paying $750,000 in annual rent but UNL gets a $300,000 credit for lost concessions and about a $300,000 credit (depending on game attendance) for ticket surcharges the city gets to keep.
UNL gets an estimated $100,000 to $150,000 in state sales taxes collected in the arena during university events. So the upshot is they'll be paying a nominal fee, a couple hundred thousand dollars a year in Osborne's estimation.
But Perlman and Osborne said they're giving up about $1.4 million in revenue by moving to the arena.
"We do this very willingly because we think it's a good deal for us and a good deal for the city," Osborne said.
Reach Deena Winter at 473-2642 or dwinter@journalstar.com.
Video: Osborne, Perlman discuss arena, Part 1
