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The deal has potential to be very valuable at the end of the day. Fact is, Calgary doesn’t have a field house and Edmonton some how has 3. The cost of a field house would be roughly $260 million. Include affordable housing along with renovations to existing infrastructure and you have yourself hundreds of millions of dollars that the city and taxpayers would eventually be on hook for anyway.
When you look at the legacy that could be created, the numerous jobs, the added tourism and worldwide marketing that the city will receive, the value is there to be a good deal. Calgary has lost a lot of luster in recent times, this could be a good way to get it back and have outsiders talking about this city and this province in a positive light again.
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There is definitely such a thing as intangible benefits from having events like this, putting Calgary in the news and relevant on the world stage would have some positive effects. The downside of that though is you're assuming all we would get is positive attention and accolades, which doesn't always happen. Before the Vancouver games even started they were getting ripped by foreign reporters, there was a lot of negative attention at the start. The reports from Rio in 2016 make me never want to go there after having it be on travel list previously. When Edmonton hosted the commonwealth games it was branded "Deadmonton" by a British reporter. To me the negative attention risk is high for the following reasons:
-According to the Bidco McMahon and the Saddledome will be the main venues. It won't be ideal to host an opening ceremony in a nearly 70 year old stadium and there's high potential of embarrasment from that.
-40 year old Saddledome won't be great either
-Real threat of no snow in the City due to Chinook, Vancouver was getting crushed for Grouse mtn having no snow
-And the single biggest: Threat of disruption by eco nazi's eagerly seeking a platform. I could easily see some Green Peace assclowns rapelling down from the Calgary Tower with a TAR SANDS=MURDER banner or something.
Maybe you're of the mind that any publicity is good publicity but foreign reporters seem to make a blood sport out of poking out host city's faults and given our terrible infrastructure that will be hosting and our pariah status even in our own "country" I think they'll have no shortage of ammo. That can't be discounted when discussing intangible visibility benefits.