[trueviking]

I work for the local architects of the MTS centre and I know that it was not built with any capability for expansion…..i am certain this was a cost benefit thing…..the ownership group has explored the possibility of adding a row of luxury suites to one side, which would add another 500-600 seats to the capacity…they may do this expansion regardless of the NHL coming or not because there is demand for it even for the Moose.


18500 would be way too big for Winnipeg…..if the NHL requires that many seats to work Winnipeg will never get a team….i do wish that it was at least 16500…but only for the sake of perception….the reality is that it doesn’t matter….anyone who claims 15000 is too small isn’t doing their homework.


Regarding the economics of a 15500 seat arena:

Firstly if you look at the chart above, almost 1/3 of the league is drawing less than 12000 per game so immediately a sold out 15000 seat arena is 20% more profitable as it is.

Secondly, if you consider what seats are lost in the MTS centre, the revenues are not significant at all….the 1500 missing seats are at the 300 level….these would generally be priced at say $20 - $30 each…..this would mean that the lost revenue would be something in the neighbourhood of $35 000 per game…and that is if they are all sold all the time….again, you can see from the chart above that the lost revenue is not significant….certainly not prohibitive…..its the difference between making $800k per game or $835k…..its not much more than a million dollars a season……most revenue comes from lower bowl and suites.

If you use the average ticket price for the league ($52), a 15 500 seat arena would generate $800 000/game which would be in the top half of the league…..certainly enough to be viable…..if you use the average ticket prices in Edmonton (closer to $60), another smaller arena that doesn’t have thousands of low priced seats to water down the average, a 15000 seat arena would generate $930 000 per game, which is more than acceptable.

The MTS centre is definitely a positive…..both hamilton and quebec still have to convince their governments to pony up that cash (far from easy) and it will be at least 3 years before they can use it even if they put shovels in the ground today ….the MTS centre was built before the huge spike in construction costs (doubled in 5 years)…..it would easily be a $250 million dollar building today and I’m not sure that it would get done at that cost….

i suspect that whoever will locate a team in Winnipeg, they will likely crunch the numbers and come to the same conclusion, so in the end the perception that it is too small isn’t really all that important….


As an aside, the MTS centre brought the Thomson family into the mix by a twist of fate…they owned the building (eatons) that used to be on the site….in lieu of money they took shares in both the AHL team and the arena itself…..since then, they have bought out all the other partners except one….this fateful connection might be the answer to our ownership issues as it is rumoured that they are backing this group that is working to bring a team to Winnipeg….so again the MTS centre was a positive….