Quote:
Originally Posted by New Era
Except they can't. The Flames can't institute a "tax." If they upped the cost of tickets to start building a war chest for a future building, that become HRR and they have to give 50% to the players. Doesn't make sense. They are better to go through the process and have the City institute the ticket tax and recover the casts that way.
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No reason they can't work with the city to start that tax now (or could've done so any time in the last 30 years). All you need to do is build in a contingency use for that money in the event a new building is somehow not desired/required in the future (NHL folds...about the same probability as Flames leaving town) - any taxes from hockey tix are used to fund local arenas, any taxes from concert, etc. tix are used to fund the arts.
Each side would compete for our gets to take 'credit' for whatever money is accumulated in the fund - the fair thing to do would simply be subtract from the project total costs and not factor into negotiations at all, since the only fair way to categorize is 'user fee'.