Stadiums & Arenas of Canada, Part 3

[milomilo]

Funnily enough, I don't actually place any value on how profitable The Flames are.

The Flames are a piddly little minnow compared to Calgary's other big companies, they aren't important to our economy at all and do not warrant subsidy to improve their profits.

[Corndogger]

Originally Posted by wave46

NHL Team Profitability

Well, the Flames profit $11m USD on revenue of $132m USD (so, about $171m CAD), so that's a rate of return of about 8.3% in 2017.

Edmonton, with its new shiny arena, did about $21m that year.

So, it'll cost the taxpayers somewhere between $100m-150m to improve CESC's profit by $10m yearly.

And your point? A near doubling of profit for the team will mean a lot to help them remain competitive. Also, as I've pointed out before, this isn't going to cost taxpayers anything extra. We've already paid for our share. The money for this and a number of other large civic projects has been sitting in slush funds for years. There's ZERO chance that the City will return the money to us. It'll either be spent on this or some project that will result in next to no return for the City. And the money is going to be transferred to cover operating costs or capital projects like roads.

[blueandgoldguy]

Looking at revenues from the Forbes 2018 Hockey List it appears the Flames were tied for 23 in revenues with Nashville.

https://www.forbes.com/nhl-valuations/list/#tab:overall

I'm sure the new arena with more lower bowl seats, more high-end seating options, more advertising opportunities and more concert revenues will draw an additional $20 - $25 million revenues per year for the team assuming sellouts and at least 1 round of playoffs.

[Calgarian]

Originally Posted by milomilo

They could probably just use the highly advanced technology of building a berm/walls higher than the flood level. It isn't rocket science.

like i said previously, they are obviously going to take flooding into account in the design. I'm curious if the playing surface will be below grade, or if they will raise it up just to have less risk.

[Corndogger]

Originally Posted by blueandgoldguy

Looking at revenues from the Forbes 2018 Hockey List it appears the Flames were tied for 23 in revenues with Nashville.

https://www.forbes.com/nhl-valuations/list/#tab:overall

I'm sure the new arena with more lower bowl seats, more high-end seating options, more advertising opportunities and more concert revenues will draw an additional $20 - $25 million revenues per year for the team assuming sellouts and at least 1 round of playoffs.

That list makes a great case for why the Flames need a new facility. Add that to the fact that many major concerts bypass Calgary now b/c the roof of the Saddledome can't support the weight of most act's gear and it's a no-brainer why we need a new arena/events center.

For the record, I can't even remember the last time I went to a Flames game. I'm not much of a hockey fan so my support for the facility has little to do with them other than knowing that without them it's highly unlikely we'd see other events come to Calgary or see other teams play.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by Corndogger

And your point? A near doubling of profit for the team will mean a lot to help them remain competitive. Also, as I've pointed out before, this isn't going to cost taxpayers anything extra. We've already paid for our share. The money for this and a number of other large civic projects has been sitting in slush funds for years. There's ZERO chance that the City will return the money to us. It'll either be spent on this or some project that will result in next to no return for the City. And the money is going to be transferred to cover operating costs or capital projects like roads.

You might have pointed it out, but you are still wrong. A $290m tax bill is a $290m tax bill however you spin it. And yes, if we spent this money on roads, or schools, or transit, or reducing the tax burden or almost anything else it would make Calgary richer.

[J.OT13]

Progress on Gatineau's new arena.

Originally Posted by Quebeker

Le ''nouveau guertin'' prend forme.


Crédit Photo : PATRICK WOODBURY, LE DROIT



Plus de détails sur le site du journal leDroit : https://www.ledroit.com/actualites/g...Gsvd7VKHISE4bs

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Progress on Gatineau's new arena.

In the past it has been discussed that Gatineau has designs on hosting the 2022(?) Memorial Cup and if the arena's capacity would be sufficient. A capacity of 4000 has usually been mentioned but the actual capacity when you count luxury boxes and VIP sections will be 4800.

[JHikka]

What the Halifax Wanderers can teach us about building a great city
By Tristan Cleveland
StarMetro Halifax
Thu., Aug. 8, 2019

"Until this year, the Wanderers Grounds was a little-used chunk of lumpy grass taking up space in the city’s core. Now, the sound of thousands of screaming fans can be heard from many blocks away every time Wanderers FC plays a match. It’s a beautiful thing.

The Wanderers, Halifax’s new professional soccer team, put their stadium in a place where it brings life to the downtown — and amazingly, they did all this with no public money. These are great reasons to root for the team.

Their business strategy also offer lessons on how to build a great city.

The way the Wanderers built this stadium is the polar opposite of how most are built today. Usually, a government coughs up hundreds of millions of dollars in grants or tax deals. The costs are justified by over-optimistic, best-case-scenario predictions of economic benefits, which rarely come anywhere close to being true. The Brookings Institute finds that “no recent facility appears to have earned anything approaching a reasonable return on investment.”

The Wanderers, in contrast, are starting small. They’re using low-cost shipping containers and movable bleachers, allowing them to pay for the stadium on their own. All they need from the city is to maintain the field, but even then, the team pays rent every time they use it.

The stadium is also rightsized for Halifax. Its 6,000 seats sell out nearly every game. As its popularity grows, they can add bleachers to fit roughly 12,000 people, which the team’s president, Derek Martin, thinks is about the right scale for Halifax.

One day it may make sense to build a permanent facility. If that time comes, the city can have an informed debate about whether our government should chip in. We won’t need to trust the club’s projections on fan numbers or economic impact. We will know first-hand the team’s popularity, financial viability and its impact on street life and city pride.

In this way, the Wanderers are demonstrating a model for how governments should make all investments."


https://www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...reat-city.html

[someone123]

Originally Posted by JHikka

The stadium is also rightsized for Halifax. Its 6,000 seats sell out nearly every game. As its popularity grows, they can add bleachers to fit roughly 12,000 people, which the team’s president, Derek Martin, thinks is about the right scale for Halifax.

Well, it's the right size for soccer in a brand new league. From an economics perspective it's also worth pointing out that complete sellouts indicate that prices are too low or there aren't enough seats. The perfect stadium and pricing plan would have 1 empty seat.

It seems like a good success story though and I completely agree that the old field was underused. I also think it's a much better location than Shannon Park, and it shows how parking concerns are often overblown (there is no parking specifically for the Wanderers site, but there is a lot of structured parking within a 5-10 minute walk that is mostly empty on evenings and weekends).

It's one of the many cases where a public site in Halifax wasn't living up to its potential. By that I mean that it was a site that could have produced a lot more value with just a little bit of investment, and now it is. Halifax was really stuck in the mud for a long time; these public facilities were all falling apart, city staff didn't seem to want to do anything, politicians and voters were incredibly risk averse, etc. There is something to be said for fiscal prudence but you also shouldn't be living on dog food when you earn a good salary. That attitude seems to be slowly disappearing.

[Dr Awesomesauce]

Re Halifax

I know I'm a broken record, but I really like the idea of Halifax starting small, not unlike the Westhills proposal: Build a beautiful grandstand, maybe 10,000 seats, and have temporary seating or standing room or a berm of some sort rounding out the rest. All privately funded of course. See how it goes and expand as needed. Recreate that collegiate atmosphere that has made the Maritimes a good place to watch football over the years.

[megadude]

About time, though it might never be profitable. But having academy and producing some better players would be nice.

Building it in north Brampton would be a mistake, being that far from the highways and farther from the pool of players from sauga, Scarborough and Markham.

Brampton will build a new state-of-the-art cricket stadium. The realization that the country needs a world-class facility was driven home during the second Global T20 League that ended on Sunday with Winnipeg Hawks stunning Vancouver Knights in the final before a record crowd of 6,000 at the CAA Centre in Brampton.

With turf transported from Indianapolis for a new wicket and a plush new field laid out in less than three months at a cost of $3 million (U.S.), Gurmeet Singh, owner and CEO of Bombay Sports Club of the GT20 League said these annual costs could be utilized in other areas if a stadium is built as soon as possible. It didn’t take Patrick Brown, the Mayor of Brampton, long to step in.

Brown wasn’t willing to divulge the cost, seating capacity or where the world-class facility would be erected. But The Sun learned it will be built in Meadows Gore in the north end of the city where there’s already a massive community centre. Brown added the stadium will be “built fairly soon,’’ but until then it’s almost a certainty the tournament will return to the CAA Centre next year as the venue has proved popular with the vast majority of the fans who live in Brampton and Mississauga. The stadium will also house a cricket academy where 24 players picked from the national squad, the developmental and under-19 teams will start training and then embark on its first international trip to Australia later this year. Singh said that his firm will likely help financially with the upkeep of the stadium and also the academy. In a lofty bid to help Canada qualify for the next World Cup the players in the academy will be assisted by top-rated coaches and also be paid $30,000 a year. “We want to make it as professional an environment for the players as possible who now have to juggle between full-time jobs and play the game on a part-time basis,” Gurmeet Singh said.

The current makeshift stadium.

[FrankieFlowerpot]

How about an E-Sports arena in Toronto?

https://twitter.com/blogTO/status/1161366926746107904

[EpicPonyTime]

I really don't understand that Twitter post. Is it just meant to be an add for Wealthsimple, or is it actually a piece of news?

[FrankieFlowerpot]

They are saying it's news - https://twitter.com/Wealthsimple/sta...33051794956289

[king10]

Interesting. What would the capacity be? What is that exact location?

[Berklon]

That's gotta be the nicest dedicated esport arena anywhere.

Not sure how accurate that picture is, but it appears to be very close to the CN Tower.

[O-tacular]

The rise of e"sports" makes me weep for humanity.

[Chadillaccc]

Originally Posted by Calgarian

like i said previously, they are obviously going to take flooding into account in the design. I'm curious if the playing surface will be below grade, or if they will raise it up just to have less risk.

If they're going for an urban scaled arena, the playing surface will most certainly below ground level.

[MonctonRad]

And TD Bank has just bought naming rights to yet another arena.

Harbour Station in Saint John NB will soon be known as TD Bank Centre.