Quote:
Originally Posted by Trojan97
The Kibbie Dome holds 16,000 and the Fargodome holds 18,700. I'd imagine the Flames are looking at 25k max. The stadiums in Hamilton/Ottawa hold 24k, Molson Stadium in MTL is at around 25k with the renos. Mid 20's seems to be the trend in the league.
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I would be extremely surprised if it was 25k max. Every single rumbling on capacity for the football stadium has it being north of 30k, think something along the lines of Winnipeg's new stadium (33k).
Your reasoning is sound, in that CFL stadium capacities are on a downward trend due to all the games being available in HD, but I think you chose three examples that skew the narrative a little.
Montreal shouldn't be included in new stadium capacity trends, as it was tiny for CFL standards, and this was an attempt to expand a very small stadium to something more respectable.
So if you go with just new facilities and look for a trend;
Ottawa: 24k
Hamilton: 25k
Winnipeg: 33k
Saskatchewan: 33k (expandable to 40k)
I think the more accurate conclusion is that yes, capacities are trending downward, but the larger draw cities (Winnipeg, Saskatchewan, Calgary etc) are still going to be building 30k+ stadiums.
I totally get the business model of decreasing supply to keep a full stadium and then generating more revenue with better/more expensive seats/suites, but to put your prediction in perspective;
The Stamps are drawing some of their lowest attendance in decades, and the atrocious fan experience of McMahon Stadium has a lot to do with that. However those low attendance figures are 28-29k.
I would be very, very surprised if the Flames looked at those figures and said "Well, 29k seems to be the new norm in that crappy stadium, so attendance will like jump well over 30k on a nightly basis in a new stadium.......so let's go with 25k because Ottawa and Hamilton did.
Not a chance, imo. We'll see 31 - 34k stadium/fieldhouse, expandable to 40k like Saskatchewan, if I were guessing.