No shot taken! SaskTel Centre in Saskatoon systematically sells more tickets to it's concerts than Winnipeg does so if either city needs to have the larger arena I guess it would be Saskatoon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonshine_Jungle_Tour
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prismatic_World_Tour
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purpose_World_Tour
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Tour_(Garth_Brooks)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul2Soul:_The_World_Tour
Saskatoon & Sask Rush owner, Bruce Urban, would never make the mistake of building an even smaller sized arena & then later have to shoehorn more seats in every nook & cranny, with obstructed views, just so it doesn't have smallest arena in the NHL like Bell MTS Centre did, it's just bad business sense.
we all know what happens when you assume,
means you probably missed something you don't know about & are wrong
Saskatoon has a higher income per capita than Winnipeg and Saskatchewan has a larger GDP than Manitoba so Saskatoon would be a better bet for promoters of concerts based on disposable income alone. Maybe that's why some concerts go to Saskatchewan instead of Manitoba, example Thomas Rhett concert tour last year.
plus:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maroon_V_Tour
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melody_Road_Tour
SaskTel Centre has more concerts than either London Ontario or Hamilton plus SaskTel Centre 100% of the time has more spectators per concert than the Budweiser arena etc. I looked at SaskTel Centre's FB page list of events coming up, outside of main tenants sporting events, they have just as many as Bell MTS in comparison.
I agree that Saskatoon should probably reno SaskTel Centre to it's full potential for the time being, add an additional couple thousand seats to it's current 16,000 configuration capacity by raising the roof and doubling it's concourse area. Lord knows SaskTel Centre has the room around building to do it, something that can't be said for Bell MTS in Winnipeg.
In a couple decades Saskatoon can revisit idea of building new building downtown with the new technologies that add to cost efficiencies to increasing the spectator experience, plus synergy of having hospitality & services downtown to benefit from having 18,000 people downtown after events.