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Originally Posted by YOWetal
Well if these teams are worth $100 million the Sens should be worht $500 million in terms of reputation and tourism. We may get the odd CFL fan flying here but Sens tourists would dwarf anything these teams can muster. I guess NHL is seen as rich and not deserving of subsidies. Which is kind of true but the Sens are at the absolute bottom in revenues in the league.
I am willing to pitch in especially if it means giving rights to build condos on the already commerical area of Landsdowne. I just think we should be more transparent about it instead of waterfalls and other finanacnial shenangians so we can pretend it isn't costing us anything.
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There are definitely fans that travel for the CFL and the OHL and soccer, but no doubt they would be dwarfed by what the Sens draw in. In my view, economic impact is a factor, but the bigger factor is that having all of those teams and the facilities to host big events makes the city a more vibrant and livable place.
The financial arrangements with OSEG actually make sense in a lot of ways, but they are really complex, not easy for people to understand, and they put an emphasis on profits coming back to the city. Profits aren't really the point of the deal, as the city shouldn't be in business to make money. People have focused on the fact that the deal won't earn the city revenue, instead of the fact that the city got new facilities and a bunch of new teams at a large discount. It probably would have been more politically saleable if the city just provided a one-time grant or loan for the facilities, as that would diffuse a lot of the noise around the deal.