Originally Posted by Cappy
I have friends and colleagues on the Flames side on this. They usually fall into a few of the following traits:
- "pro business": they tend to buy the idea that sports bring in economic benefit which is good for the city. They brush off the studies as some sort of "ivory tower" academic conspiracy, and bring up places like LA Live and other areas as evidence this is untrue.
Another facet of this cohort is that they are inevitably little weasels and are trying to get on the side of the business crowd. I know alot of people who fall over themselves to tell stories about the time they met Brett Wilson or Murray Edwards, etc. and all truly think one day they will be building things by each of their sides. They think they are the future leaders in the city and are not about to disagree with those leaders to risk their inevitable climb up the ladder.
- "Conservative": now, I don't mean small "c" conservatives, and, as both a conservative and, mostly, a Conservative, I am certainly not painting a large brush to one political party or ideology, but the majority of people I know who support the Flames fall into this branch of the political spectrum - perhaps because Alberta/Calgary has so many conservative supporters. I also don't just mean people who vote; i mean people who are actively tied to the Conservative parties (Fed and Prov). I know several higher-ups of both orgs that support the Flames in this fight - i think it's somewhat tied to the "pro-business" mentality of the conservative parties, and their inability to separate pro-business from "pro-business" (something that benefits business and inturn benefits the public vs. something that benefits business with limited/no public benefit)
These are the same people losing their stuff over the Corporate tax proposals by the Libs noting that the middle class is being squeezed out by new taxes etc.
- Anti-Nenshi-ites: This goes without saying, but a big cohort despise Nenshi. They attack him personally and say he is bad for the city. They don't understand why people vote for him, and guess that most do because he is funny on twitter. They chalk all this up to people being "uniformed" and, particularly among the older crowd, think that us millennials are ruining it for them.
- Flames fans: goes without saying. But i would say the majority of the Pro-CSEC colleagues regularly attend Flames games, either through their own season tickets or corporate tickets. In most cases they are wealthy (and can afford the season tickets - or sell them and attend a handful of games while paying for the rest) or have upper-middle class so purchasing the odd game here or there is a drop in the bucket.
Again, I know Flames fans, season ticket holders, and corporate users that oppose the idea, but this just seems to be a theme here.
- Emotionally attached: these people have a great attachment to the Flames; far beyond the entertainment value that the majority of flames fans have. They aren't bandwagoners (those friends don't care) and aren't even that group that post on forums or watch every game. It's something more. It's an emotional connection that reaches beyond.
- The Selfish: They oppose anything the city/province/feds do that doesn't benefit themselves in some sort of way. They want low taxes, but want to subsidize an arena. When questioned, they say "well i didn't want a library/public art/bike lanes/homeless shelters/schools" etc. What benefits the person is the way the person feels about the project.
We all do this in some way or another, and so it's not necessarily out of the ordinary, but this is one of the main issues that many people have. The new arena benefits them in some way (concerts, hockey, pride, business development) and therefore they want it to happen. If the city spent a bunch of money on stuff they don't use, it's time to return the favour.
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