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Originally Posted by Cleveland Steam Whistle
While I don't dissagree with any of the things you bring up, I actually agree with the poster when he says the city and the Flames need a new arena much more so than the Stamps need a football stadium.
Everything you say is true, but at the risk of offending the hard core CFL fans here, it's much more paramount that the Flames get a new rink and the city get a new indoor arena for events and concerts. The CFL is a secondary league, with much lower requirements and lower profitability ceiling than the arena with a stable NHL tenant. I also know many have grand thoughts of MLS teams and stadium concerts, but they aren't really likely outcomes or things that will happen frequently enough to warrant any investment in a new stadium. While I agree McMahon delivers a worse relative experience than the Dome does now, even when you factor in what should be lower expectations (which reflect in the price of tickets as well) of the CFL product, the truth of the matter is, if we did nothing to McMAhon for the next 20 years (outside of standard upgrades) the Stamps would continue to work as they do now. The same cannot be said of the Dome and the Flames. We have already been missing out on concerts now for years now, and somewhere in around 5 years from now the Dome truly will start to be not acceptable for an NHL team.
A city of this size in our climate really does need a ~18k or so arena assuming we have an NHL tenant and will look to attract concerts. And over time that arena Ned's to be refreshed or rebuilt. Our city does not need a 30K plus stadium with a main tenant being a CFL franchise. Not enough concerts will come through to justify, not enough other sports teams when all a CFL team truely needs is ~25k seats around a basic field with basic amenities.
Which is what I actually think the Flames are acknowledging with their proposal. The only way to really justify a new stadium like that for this city is if you make a multi purpose facility like they suggest, get some other use out of it. And don't get me wrong, I want it, and I will go to a few more Stamps games because of it, but it is still very much a nice to have even in the context of non essential items. This city IMO needs a fully functioning indoor arena to truly facilitate the cities entertainment needs, but it does not need a top notch stadium.
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Bah this is Flames fan talk as the Saddledome is a fully functional indoor arena. Yes it's out of date but it's fully functioning and facilitates the cities entertainment needs outside of a few top concerts. What makes you think the Fieldhouse/Stadium doesn't cover all these entertainment needs and more given it would be able to pull off soccer and large scale concerts? The fieldhouse is also a public venue that will get much more public use out of it as opposed to a private arena. If you are worried about taxpayer money being used at all at least a case can be made for the stadium as opposed to a private arena.
Look I believe the Flames need a new arena to compete in the NHL landscape but there is no way you will ever be able to convince me that a new arena would benefit Calgarians more than the proposed fieldhouse/stadium because that would be totally false.