Stadiums and Arenas of Canada part 2

[someone123]

Originally Posted by GernB

Albrecht's group couldn't get a $6m, 34,000 seat stadium built in 1984, and the Halifax CWG bid, which included a CFL standard stadium, was abandoned due to concerns over rising costs....so I think it's not unfair to infer that there just isn't sufficient interest there.

Well, the CWG bid to take one example was up to something like $1.1B by the time the plug was pulled. The stadium itself was only $150M or so of that. As of a few years ago the municipality had earmarked something like $30-60M for a stadium. It isn't true that governments there have never been willing to fund that type of project. I do believe however that it's a hard sell in Halifax to spend public dollars on infrastructure that is mostly for professional sports teams. Personally, I think that's a positive aspect of the culture there, even if it's a bit frustrating for CFL fans.

There is a private group let by a prominent regional businessman, Don Gardiner, who claims that a 20,000 seat stadium can be built without public funding. They are considering a suburban location in Dartmouth. I'm guessing they are planning to build a bare bones stadium. One positive aspect of the project is that it just gets more and more viable over time as the city grows. The market is a lot bigger now than it was in the 80's.

[GernB]

[QUOTE=someone123;7343011. It isn't true that governments there have never been willing to fund that type of project. [/QUOTE]

As I said, Halifax was able to get the Metro Centre built...but then hockey will always get the nod over football in this country, even for minor league or junior teams. But efforts for a stadium have never, to my knowledge, been able to attract anything like the interest necessary to get a project up and running.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by someone123

There is a private group let by a prominent regional businessman, Don Gardiner, who claims that a 20,000 seat stadium can be built without public funding. They are considering a suburban location in Dartmouth. I'm guessing they are planning to build a bare bones stadium. One positive aspect of the project is that it just gets more and more viable over time as the city grows. The market is a lot bigger now than it was in the 80's.

There is also the fact that the CFL's needs have become more modest over time.

For many years it was said that any new teams would require a 30,000 seat stadium (back when only Saskatchewan at 27,000 and change was appreciably under that figure), but these days I'm sure that if Halifax built a fairly barebones BMO Field/Tim Hortons Field type 20,000 seat stadium, the CFL team would follow in short order.

And a basic 20,000 seat stadium is really not an incredible extragavance for a metro area approaching a half million people... unless one thinks that the Metro Centre is a preposterous luxury that never should have been built.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by GernB

As I said, Halifax was able to get the Metro Centre built...but then hockey will always get the nod over football in this country, even for minor league or junior teams. But efforts for a stadium have never, to my knowledge, been able to attract anything like the interest necessary to get a project up and running.

The perception with the Metro Centre was that it had more value as a year-round general-purpose venue because it is covered. The hockey team in Halifax isn't actually a very big deal and if I had to hazard a guess I'd say that it's not a particularly huge part of the schedule of that venue.

Attendance for the basketball team was on par with or maybe greater than the hockey team during many years. Halifax isn't really a hockey town (or much of a sports town at all compared with a lot of other cities).

Originally Posted by esquire

I'm sure that if Halifax built a fairly barebones BMO Field/Tim Hortons Field type 20,000 seat stadium, the CFL team would follow in short order.

Maybe it's changed but the old CFL commissioner was oddly explicit in stating to the local media that if a suitable stadium were built the CFL team would follow. In Canadian terms Halifax is actually a pretty big market, especially when it comes to anything that doesn't have any competition in the Maritimes.

[SkydivePilot]

Originally Posted by Oilkountry

this was exactly my point. I should have been more specific esquire my bad

No problemo.

[FrankieFlowerpot]

The BMO Field south canopy/roof is being lifted into place tomorrow morning.

Hopefully I'll get down there and snap a few pics

[Franco401]

Originally Posted by someone123

In Canadian terms Halifax is actually a pretty big market, especially when it comes to anything that doesn't have any competition in the Maritimes.

There isn't no competition in the Maritimes. Touchdown Atlantic has shown again and again that Moncton is a quite suitable market, and they already have a stadium that would only need expansion. Bring back the temp stands put in for the World Cup and Moncton is pratically on par with Hali, with 1.5 million people in a 3.5 hour drive.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Franco401

There isn't no competition in the Maritimes. Touchdown Atlantic has shown again and again that Moncton is a quite suitable market, and they already have a stadium that would only need expansion. Bring back the temp stands put in for the World Cup and Moncton is pratically on par with Hali, with 1.5 million people in a 3.5 hour drive.

Moncton looks on par with Halifax market-wise when you draw a circle around it that includes Halifax and pretend that somebody 2 hours away is as likely to buy tickets as somebody 10 minutes away.

In any case this wasn't really what I was getting at. My point was that I think there will be at most one CFL team in the Maritimes for the foreseeable future, so it would have a large and captive market (in a Canadian context), either in Moncton or Halifax. The situation is different from, say, Southern Ontario, where there is a larger population but also far more competition.

[king10]

Originally Posted by Franco401

There isn't no competition in the Maritimes. Touchdown Atlantic has shown again and again that Moncton is a quite suitable market, and they already have a stadium that would only need expansion. Bring back the temp stands put in for the World Cup and Moncton is pratically on par with Hali, with 1.5 million people in a 3.5 hour drive.

Moncton stadium needs a lot more than just an expansion with temp stands from the world cup.

The stadium lacks the high end luxury suites, club seats, high end concession stands and team stores that all the new cfl stadiums have and which cfl teams need to make money.

Not to mention the running track makes for horrible distances to the playing field from the stands.

[Oilkountry]

Originally Posted by king10

Moncton stadium needs a lot more than just an expansion with temp stands from the world cup.

The stadium lacks the high end luxury suites, club seats, high end concession stands and team stores that all the new cfl stadiums have and which cfl teams need to make money.

Not to mention the running track makes for horrible distances to the playing field from the stands.

Moncton stadium would be an embarrassment to this league and this country as it was for the world cup. If and only if moncton would agree to make it more suitable for the CFL, I would be a fan of bringing a "Banjobowl" type tradition of the atlantic based team playing an annual game in moncton but that would be about it. The metro of Moncton is 140K the city of halifax alone has 390k and the metro is approaching half a million. Seams like a pretty easy choice to me. No offence to Newbrunswick (I was born in Freddy) But the CFL has no business in that province in any stadium it's a retirement home even more so than halifax

speaking of expansion i found this pretty interesting. and from a quick twitter search i can tell you their is a surprising amount of interest in this

http://www.thestar.com/sports/football/2...l-fans-urge-cfl-to-play-in-st-louis.html

[Dr Awesomesauce]

^Great, now there are going to be a slew of posts explaining that Moncton is, in fact, the great metropolis of the Maritimes. It's St Catharines if St Kitts weren't in the Golden Horseshoe...

[Oilkountry]

Originally Posted by Dr Awesomesauce

^Great, now there are going to be a slew of posts explaining that Moncton is, in fact, the great metropolis of the Maritimes. It's St Catharines if St Kitts weren't in the Golden Horseshoe...

Honestly who ever wants to show that can save it. You have half a million people directly by Halifax and a million people in Nova Scotia. That alone is enough. riders,bombers,red blacks,ticats and arguable both alberta teams work with around the same numbers. Add to that another 700k in NB and 150 in pei you have almost 2 million potential fans at arms reach. 3 levels of support, A city twice the size of Regina, a province equal to sask and the maritime pride all working with each other. besides that Halifax is a more liveable city, more domestic sponsorship available and their is an opportunity to build a CFL appropriate stadium instead of trying to make some high school bleachers 20 feet back from a running track work out. Noone is going to convince me that Moncton is a better CFL location than Halifax. It's a truly beautiful major city in canada where moncton is more of a big town that is no doubt important to the success of an Atlantic team

[FrankieFlowerpot]

The BMO roof is going up.

Shawn Jeffords twitter account has some great pictures of it happening

Http://twitter.com/shawn_Jeffords

Assembled on site as one massive structure weighing over 490 metric tonnes (980,000 pounds), the south canopy will be lifted in tandem by two Mammoet lattice boom crawler cranes. With a combined lifting capacity of 1,000 metric tonnes, the two massive cranes will simultaneously lift and then crawl the 377 by 68 foot canopy from the foot of the south concourse for incorporation into the roof structure that will cover the east, west and south stands.

[FrankieFlowerpot]

http://twitter.com/TorontoFC

[MonctonRad]

I have no doubts that the two markets the CFL are really interested in is Quebec City and Halifax (with Halifax having the inside edge given QC's current preoccupation with the NHL).

I however take umbrage with a couple of the statements in some of the recent posts above.

The Moncton Stadium is not an embarrassment. You have to keep in mind that it is a university track & field stadium and was not built as a dedicated football stadium. If you view it in that light, it is actually one of the more impressive facilities of it's kind in the country. At 10,000 permanent seats and with a Mondo track surface, it is viewed quite favourably by the Canadian Track & Field Association. It has held the Canadian national track & field championships twice, the IAAF World Junior Track & Field Championships in 2010 (for which the facility was built) as well as the FIFA U20 Women's World Cup in 2014 and the FIFA Women's World Cup in 2015. In addition, the stadium has played host to not one, not two but three regular season CFL games. Attendance was as high as 20,725 for the first CFL game and 13,138 for one of the FIFA games, which, considering that Team Canada did not play in Moncton, compares favourably to attendances at other venues in the country.

No, the Moncton Stadium is not an embarrassment.

It is however definitely not a football stadium, and if Moncton were ever to consider getting into the running for a CFL team, I think a new facility would have to be built.

Moncton is not incapable of doing such a thing. We are currently building a new $113M 9,000 seat downtown arena and events centre which will open in 2018. The seating capacity of this arena will compare quite favourably to ScotiaBank Centre in Halifax (10,595 seats). Given this, why would a purpose built modest CFL stadium with 25,000 seats be out of the question?

Having said all this, I do accept that Moncton will not be getting the next CFL expansion team, and will not for some time. I think the Touchdown Atlantic games were held in Moncton just as a ploy by the CFL to goad Halifax into mounting a bid for a CFL franchise. While Halifax's civic pride was wounded for a time, and pubic outrage in the NS capital led to a minor municipal response, things seem to have settled down again. There are currently no plans in Halifax to build a CFL ready stadium.

Things to keep in mind:

1) - Moncton will surpass 150,000 people in it's CMA by early next year and Moncton should reach 200,000 by mid century if the current growth rate is maintained. How big was Regina when it got it's CFL franchise?
2) - A team in Halifax would be Nova Scotia's team. New Brunswick has been proudly and fiercely independent of NS since 1785. Halifax's dominance of the region is viewed with some ambivalence and disdain in NB. I think an NB team in Moncton could be well supported in NB (and PEI) and a natural rivalry would exist between the two Maritime franchises.
3) - There is a strong football culture in southeastern NB (and in southern NB in general). There would be a ready built fan base for any team based here.

My predictions:

team #10 will be in Halifax, but probably won't occur for at least another 8-10 years.
teams #11 & 12 will be in Quebec City and someplace in the west ( to allow for regional balance, possibly in Victoria).

If the CFL ever expands to 16 teams, I expect Moncton will be in the mix. This probably won't be until 2060-75 or so, and I will long since be dead, but I fully expect this could be a possibility.

Hence the big question - just how big does the CFL want to be? Is the answer 10 teams, 12 teams or 16 teams? The answer depends on the greed of the team owners. If the team owners don't want to split up the TV revenues pie much more than it is now, then the CFL likely will never get any larger than 12 teams.

[king10]

^^^^ fair post, cheers!

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Moncton is not incapable of doing such a thing. We are currently building a new $113M 9,000 seat downtown arena and events centre which will open in 2018. The seating capacity of this arena will compare quite favourably to ScotiaBank Centre in Halifax (10,595 seats). Given this, why would a purpose built modest CFL stadium with 25,000 seats be out of the question?

25K for a city with 150K in its metro would be quite a stretch, IMO. Part of the issue is that a franchise in Moncton partly depends on participation and attendance from Saint John, Fredericton, and PEI. There will be people who make the trip, but depending on them to fill 10-15% of your seats each game wouldn't be the best model to seek if you're looking to fill the stadium out. As much as we infight amongst ourselves in the Maritimes we also loooove to infight amongst ourselves in NB. Saint Johners, in particularly, would probably hesitate to support a team in Moncton unless it was heavily branded as an NB team and played an exhibition game at UNBSJ each season and had substantial local presence throughout the south. If the team is branded as Moncton then you can forget about mass support from beyond Sussex. They would almost have to follow Saskatchewan and BC and name the team NB.

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

1) - Moncton will surpass 150,000 people in it's CMA by early next year and Moncton should reach 200,000 by mid century if the current growth rate is maintained./

Growth rates are good but the Moncton area's growth rate includes a lot of migrating seniors and boomers. I'd expect the growth rate to slow unless other factors like births and immigration increase.

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

2) - A team in Halifax would be Nova Scotia's team. New Brunswick has been proudly and fiercely independent of NS since 1785. Halifax's dominance of the region is viewed with some ambivalence and disdain in NB. I think an NB team in Moncton could be well supported in NB (and PEI) and a natural rivalry would exist between the two Maritime franchises.

Depending on how large the CFL wants to become...i'd imagine places like Victoria, London, and Quebec City would be candidates for teams prior to Moncton. That's if the CFL is seeking to expand their footprint...currently they have the task of righting one of their franchises (Toronto) and making sure a new expansion doesn't see the same fate as a previous expansion (Ottawa).

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

3) - There is a strong football culture in southeastern NB (and in southern NB in general). There would be a ready built fan base for any team based here.

Can't really disagree with this.

This discussion of Halifax v Moncton always seems to creep up every few months and I can't help but feel that Halifax is a far superior market for a CFL foray into Atlantic Canada. Despite the lack of sports interest I think there's enough of a base for a team and a desire for a quality national-level stadium. It should speak volumes to Halifax that a city a quarter of its size receives events like the Women's World Cup over them for the simple reason that they have a suitable venue.

[Daveography]

Rogers Place, Edmonton:

[esquire]

^ Nice shots of Rogers Place... it's coming together nicely.

Originally Posted by JHikka

This discussion of Halifax v Moncton always seems to creep up every few months and I can't help but feel that Halifax is a far superior market for a CFL foray into Atlantic Canada. Despite the lack of sports interest I think there's enough of a base for a team and a desire for a quality national-level stadium. It should speak volumes to Halifax that a city a quarter of its size receives events like the Women's World Cup over them for the simple reason that they have a suitable venue.

I think the bottom line is that there is basically one regional CFL team to be had in the maritimes, and Halifax is the presumptive favourite to land it if it ever decides it actually wants to take the steps toward making it happen. Moncton could theoretically steal it away if it lined up a proper venue and ownership, but the fact that it hasn't really done either of those things tells us that Moncton is a bit of a pipe dream.

I would go so far as to say that the whole "Moncton as potential CFL expansion site" idea exists mainly to provide the CFL with a potential threat to try and spur Halifax into action. This obviously has not worked.

[towerguy]

Hey in Edmonton with the Rogers Arena and the Stantec tower going up, where's the Greyhound station being moved to ?