The event center is economic if the city is large enough. So in large cities, they are built privately and people want to own sports teams to be anchor tenants for their profitable facilities.
Example: Suppose you can do NBA 50 nights per year and NHL 50 nights per year and A+++ concerts 150 nights per year. Then the event center is super economic - probably need 4 million people plus to make that work. And it only applies to Hockey/Basketball stadiums.
Now compare that to Calgary. It's not big enough of a city to be economic. It doesnt have an NBA team and even with a tier 1 facility, it won't attract 4 nights of taylor swift or the Biebs. Hence why it needs a subsidy.
What the City has done is participated in the upside. If in 10 years Calgary grows to 4 million people and the event center is super profitable...the city and flames both win because ticket surcharges go up and theres more events on which to charge the tax. So more revenue from the events.
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