[Joborule]

Originally Posted by Roughneck

It's not that the revenue wouldn't eventually pay for it, it's an issue of making enough to justify spending that amount of money while you currently have a modern, profitable building with upwards of 30 years left in it's life.

Because they don't need to do it 5-10 years from now either. Hell, they probably don't have to start really thinking about it for at least 20. MTS is a modern, albeit small, arena that is making the team money, has a good deal with the city, maximizes the possibilities for non-hockey events and is an appropriate size for the market as a whole. There's a reason you build arenas with the hope to last ~40 years, it takes a long time to start seeing the real returns and at the end of it's life it is essentially worth nothing so building a new arena is basically just starting over which is why TNSE isn't going to abandon an arena that has quickly reached it's prime profit years in order to go back to the start line two decades before they need to.

My argument is on the basis of me disagreeing with you in how long that arena would remain profitable once they've been around for 10 years. The standards for NHL arenas are always changing. MTS may still be up to par now aside from capacity, but will that be the case in 2020? If not, will it put a limit on their revenue stream? Question cannot be answered now, but I'd imagine being in the position isn't favourable, otherwise why do teams renovate/build new venues?

Islanders are moving to Brooklyn, where they're going to be playing a small capacity venue as well; which I think is stupid, since the seating arrange is fairly awkward as well. At least Winnipeg has an actual hockey arena. I don't imagine the Islanders staying in their new venue any longer than a decade either, and a temporary move till they get a home more suited for hockey, where they could get more revenue from it.

If it was enough to replace a 10 year old arena, the Flames would have done the same thing instead of undergoing the big reno to add suites and take out seats, because the Saddledome was more out of date as a 'revenue maximizing venue' in 96 than MTS Centre is now or will be in 10 years.

Plus, you're now arguing that the Jets need to expand their luxury suites while also criticizing the team's sustainability because their corporate support is the lowest. Hard to argue it both ways.

The dome went out of date quickly, but as you mention, was able to update it (somewhat) to more modern standards. MTS doesn't have the advantage of taking more seats away for more luxury suites. I suppose they could, but then there would be even less regular seats, which is already in limited quantity.

Because they have the lowest corporate support, they're really up against the wall in relation to any other NHL team. But luxury suites are money makers, and I would hope there would be enough money in the city that having some more suites to sell wouldn't be an issue.

First, why should they care about fans who don't want to pay the going rate for tickets? They're a business, not a charity. Those seats will cost the most to build, you don't base your decision on a new arena for them.
Second, if the buzz dies down, the larger capacity is not an advantage because it means the value of tickets drops faster. If they're at the point where they're in a new and expensive arena and are only getting the same or similar revenue, they're in a worse off financial position.

There's a reason the Flames stopped selling PL seats in the dark times, only having 17,000 available tickets is better when the arena isn't filling up than 19,000.

Because it's more people in the building when the team is doing good, meaning more tickets, concessions, and merchandised sold. If the team isn't doing hot and aren't selling as much tickets anymore, then they won't have as much use if people don't care to purchases nosebleed seats no matter how cheap they are, but it also wouldn't be a problem. If Jets are a competitive team, and make it to the playoffs, those seats are bringing in plenty of money.

No it won't. They're turning a decent profit right now. Building a new arena would mean that extra profit would have to go to financing the cost of the arena, something that isn't cheap (the Oilers and Flames have been pushing for public money and they've got some pretty deep pocketed owners in the fastest growing cities in the country). For comparison, Jobing.Com arena's financing is $12.5M a year, which means that for the Jets to be better off with a new arena than with MTS, the arena would need to double the team's profit. Those are some pretty lofty goals just to get to slightly better than where they are now. That's without the team spending more to be competitive.

Middle tier league wise is the best they can do with tickets jacked up to the max. It's okay now, but with the weaker Canadian dollar, it'll likely be tougher for Jets to break top 20 in a few years if the dollar doesn't bump back up and residents can't afford such high ticket prices anymore.

I get what you mean that this is a expensive project, and short term cost may be too much to make it worth it, but if there was a time the provincial government would be in favour of supporting the finance in a new arena, now may be the best since people don't want the Jets to leave once again because a new arena deal couldn't be struck up.

But then again, with a weaker dollar, would the province be able to afford putting in a lot for it? Not quite sure about that, and not sure if the owner would want to do the same.

Overall I feel the Jets would be better off with an +17.5K with 2/1.5 rows of luxury suits, rather than a 15K venue with one row of luxury suites. You may be right in saying it's not needed, at least the moment, but I believe that if they were to do it asap, it would save them costs later down the road, and reap the rewards sooner.