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Originally Posted by Regorium
Right now, the City fronts the 250M (you're not understanding this), and then recoups it through ticket tax (this part you have it right).
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Right now, the banks front the 250m (you're not understanding this) and the city guarantees it as the borrower of record. If CSEC defaults on the terms of its operating agreement on the facility, then all revenues accruing to the facility will revert to the city (along with the job of booking events and paying for maintenance). The facility will not magically become empty, and the ticket tax will still be collectable. The only thing that would interfere is if the NHL actually left town, which is not going to happen barring an unforeseen disaster many times larger in scale than either the recent floods or the not-so-recent NEP.
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That 250M is a very large loan and a large liability on our city. It has significant risk - if oil continues to stay low, or maybe Gaudreau/Monahan/Brodie/Hamilton all have career ending injuries, it's very possible that the complex is not break-even.
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Injuries to particular hockey players are not going to cause the Flames to leave town. Show me a case where that has ever happened in the history of professional sports.
As for oil continuing to stay low: Oil is a cyclical commodity. The price is never permanently high or permanently low. But for some reason, when the price is high, people foolishly assume it will go up forever, and when it is low, people foolishly assume it will never go up again. Both of those assumptions are plainly false and need not be taken into account.