[Caged Great]

It's all a dance. The Flames come off as whiners, the city is trying to contribute as minimally as possible.

The City does need to kick in some that won't be repaid, 50-80 million or so, maybe slightly more.

The Flames need to stop whinging and not expect 1/3 - 1/2 of the costs to be paid by the city.

As topfiverecords said, the ticket tax will only be a short term thing and will likely be paid back in 8-10 years on the less optimistic side of things. Then that revenue from then on goes to the team as they won't cut the costs of tickets.

Both sides are coming off poorly as we want everything or we're going to stamp our feet. Both sides have legitimate reasons for why they want to do things in the manner they do and there is a middle ground like in any negotiation.

The Flames as it sits with the Dome are probably leaving about 4-5 million dollars on the table each season. If there are more suites, they can charge more for them. Each suite I believe is in the 150K range per season although I'm not sure on the exact figures. I'm guessing off the top of my head there are 25 or so suites to go around the dome, so if they add all of those extra ones, then it'll jump their revenue significantly.