Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkGio
Maybe you would. But an anecdotal opinion shouldn't be considered when establishing public policy.
How would you spend those 41 evenings traveling elsewhere? You have to work, come home, and then do something with that time. If you spend 20K over 41 games, you're dropping 488 bucks a night. For $488 you can't exactly fly to Vegas for the night and drop some coin at their local economy.
Besides, the season tickets is what the Flames benefit from, which is only the small economic benefit of a few jobs and spenders in the hockey ops (ie, managers, players, coaches). People are claiming that its the pubs and venues before and after hockey that yield a net benefit. This "benefit" is the [$488 minus Ticket prices] you spend at the local economy, which based on ticket prices, is only $200 or so per night. I'm sorry, but for those who got $200 to spend 40 times a year on night outings are going to do it regardless. That's dinner and drinks and a movie and popcorn.
Maybe the $250 for game tickets would be saved up and spent elsewhere, but I have a hard time believing that someone with 20 extra thousand kicking around for silly sports event isn't ALSO spending money traveling on nice vacations.
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Thankfully I am fortunate enough to be in a position that I do the other things too. I wouldn't attend 41 more movies without the Flames, and there wouldn't be concerts to see without a new arena.
I am certainly not saying I would attend 41 events outside of Calgary, I would pool that money and go to another NFL game each year, or add a concert in Vancouver, trip to Hawaii, etc.
I could see how I might add some more nights out in Calgary, but as most of mine now are Flames or concert related, I don't know what events would be added. I'd probably ski more in winter, but that's not money spent in Calgary.
I appreciate this is an artificial anecdotal exercise, but I know myself, how I spend and what I choose to spend on, and I cannot think of a local replacement for my entertainment dollar at this time.
I do feel we will get a new arena, so this is hopefully just a discussion that becomes rendered moot, but those are some of my points towards why I feel there is a local, positive economic impact to having the Flames.
Also, and I'm sure you're getting sick of me saying this, I think this was a necessary position for CSEC to take to get Nenshi to the discussion table.