Lol exactly, it’s got about as much traction as stopping the funding of the NRA.
Never going to happen, too much politics.
They’ve got high-schools with better stadiums than some Canadian pro teams.
Some student from ASU took the time to research how all US arenas and stadiums for the four major sports were funded. Seems like the trend is for increased private money for newer stadiums.
Is that true in Canada? Rogers, BC Place reno, Mosaic, BMO are all major publicly funded projects I believe. The economics for most Canadian pro sports aren't there to support the private money you see in the US.
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It isnt the funding model that needs to be modified, its the division of revenue model that needs to be modernized.
If you expect a municipality or Government jurisdiction to put up cash or assets they need to have some kind of realistic return on investment.
I have no problem with Governments, be they Provincial, Federal or Municipal putting up money for things like arenas, they have much, much better opportunities for borrowing funds at dramatically lower rates, it makes a lot of sense.
But there has to be a realistic return on that investment to the jurisdiction.
At the same time though perhaps some sort of grand oversight is required, because some municipalities have just 'assumed the position' and spread 'em for sports teams (*cough* Edmonton *cough*) and some higher authority should have the ability to step in and veto that kind of nonsense.
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My point is exactly what it's always been. Maybe your reading capacity is decreasing.
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It's not really of great interest to me what has happened in the past or how other cities might be making ill-advised gifts to pro sports teams. What I do know is that the CoC should not be giving hundreds of millions of dollars in gifts to the NHL and the players.
They're just handing the arena over to the players, are they? Because that would be a gift.
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I do not think the NHL/NHLPA as a league/franchisor has a good business model if it is restricted to the 15-20 american markets that are able to get public gifts or are large enough to justify a privately owned building. But they are are going to have to make that decision on their own.
But you still want Murray Edwards to liquidate a big chunk of his personal assets to give an arena to the City of Calgary.
I can't say that your points are becoming less and less coherent, because you only ever had one point and it was incoherent to start with. Obviously you aren't capable of understanding the economics involved, because plenty of posters have tried to explain this to you.
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In Canada it would only take 5 provinces agreeing to amend the municipal governance act to ban Canadians subsidizing nhl arenas. That likely would be widely supported as if you remember when the feds gave the NHL teams a tax break it didn’t last long as it was overwhelmingly panned.
If Canada did this the NHL would have to seriously ask itself if it needs the Canadian market outside of Toronto, Montreal and BC. It might conclude it doesn’t.
So in other words, you are so strongly opposed to any public money going to an arena, you are willing to sacrifice not only the Flames but every small-market Canadian team.
Bully for you, but a lot of people don't agree with you and the teams are not yours to destroy.
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Now to get the US involved would likely be more difficult but you would start by working through the North American Mayors Summit to get buy in on ending the stupidity.
The North American Mayors Summit? That's not a legislative body, has no authority, no coercive power, no capacity to do anything at all except as individual cities choose to agree. Good luck with that.
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You don’t need to evict existing owners as the NHLs likely response would be something around extracting money from the NHLPA.
If you want to end the use of publicly financed arenas, you need to evict every team that is now using a publicly-financed arena. Including the Flames from the Saddledome.
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It’s funny you talk about how the NHLPA would be tough to extract 900 million per year from.
What's funny about that? Did you miss the last two lockouts? Do you honestly think it's easy to extract $900 million a year from anyone?
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My point is exactly what it's always been. Maybe your reading capacity is decreasing.
They're just handing the arena over to the players, are they? Because that would be a gift.
But you still want Murray Edwards to liquidate a big chunk of his personal assets to give an arena to the City of Calgary.
I can't say that your points are becoming less and less coherent, because you only ever had one point and it was incoherent to start with. Obviously you aren't capable of understanding the economics involved, because plenty of posters have tried to explain this to you.
I don't "want" Murray Edwards to do anything. He can do what he likes with his money and his team.
My only "want" in any of this is that taxpayers do not provide millions of dollars in gifts to the NHL, its teams or its players. I have no further requests than this.
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It's hard to argue that he doesn't make great points. It would be nice if every city just said no so using public funds wasn't even a thing. But as long as some do, it puts pressure on others.
I think measuring the economic effect of having a professional sports team in your city doesn't tell the whole story. I do believe there are other net benefits that can't be easily measured by money, or the economic effect is long term and indirect. I think it is completely reasonable for some public finds to be used to support sports teams, but I also agree that the amount owners expect is excessive. There has got to be a reasonable middle ground somewhere.
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I don't "want" Murray Edwards to do anything. He can do what he likes with his money and his team.
My only "want" in any of this is that taxpayers do not provide millions of dollars in gifts to the NHL, its teams or its players. I have no further requests than this.
Who gives a flying F what you want. All you have done since being in here is crap on the Flames whenever possible. Do you think anyone remotely cares wtf you think? F your requests.
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That's preferable if the only other option is the taxpayer paying for his building.
‘Other option’? The thing you're asking for isn't an option in the first place. Preferring the impossible to the possible is silly at best and insane at worst.
There are three possible options in Calgary:
1. A new arena is built by a public-private partnership.
2. A new arena is built entirely with public money.
3. No new arena is built. Eventually the Saddledome wears out and has to be shut down, and the city has no large venue for indoor sporting events or concerts.
If you want to see an arena built entirely with private money, you'd better relocate to a city twice the size of Calgary.
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Last edited by Jay Random; 08-27-2022 at 08:32 PM.
Yep, American sports owners have gone absolutely crazy in holding cities hostage with threats of their teams leaving to get hundreds of millions in handouts. And Canadian cities by proxy and being part of major American sports leagues get brought into the craziness as well.
I wonder if everyone in here has watched this segment with Jon Oliver? Nenshi was awesome for how he stood up to these guys, so much so that he was making the news in the US during the last round of negotiations with the Flames. Frustrated American cities took notice and loved it, as all municipalities need to start saying enough is enough.
This is one of the few times that I dont really agree with Oliver.
He takes a bit of a hard-line stance that just doesnt seem reasonable. The fact of the matter is, as I alluded to in a previous post, there are benefits to having professional sports teams around. They do 'spread the wealth' albeit in a very difficult to quantify way.
But you cant be held ransom by them. There are a lot of ways that municipalities or jurisdictions benefit from Pro sports teams and they can facilitate that benefit through cooperation, but the revenue model has to be revamped and I think significant importance should be placed on standardizing subsidization deals.
Like a hard 'Salary Cap' on Government aid to sports teams.
You cant have places shooting money out of a T-Shirt cannon at sports teams and then having every other team in every other jurisdiction expecting the same.
It sucks to say, and its just purely my opinion, but the worst thing to happen to the Calgary Flames' arena proposals was the Edmonton Oilers' arena deal.
It was just so, so sweet and the Flames/CSEC wanted the same deal and in no reasonable universe were they going to get it.
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‘Other option’? The thing you're asking for isn't an option in the first place. Preferring the impossible to the possible is silly at best and insane at worst.
There are three possible options in Calgary:
1. A new arena is built by a public-private partnership.
2. A new arena is built entirely with public money.
3. No new arena is built. Eventually the Saddledome wears out and has to be shut down, and the city has no large venue for indoor sporting events or concerts.
If you want to see an arena built entirely with private money, you'd better relocate to a city twice the size of Calgary.
The fourth option is the NHL/NHLPA gets its house in order so it can afford to pay players and also pay for a facility.
It's disingenuous to suggest your options are the only ones.
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This is hopelessly idealistic, but I question the premise that a franchise needs to be profitable in every regard.
Owning one is an extravagant hobby. It's a really nice bonus that most owners manage to grift a very positive return out of the deal, but as is often mentioned in the weird mental-gymnastics of "arenas are terrible investments so taxpayers should pay" - is "there are better ways to make money than owning a pro sports team".
While that statement is probably true, I'd also argue that franchises have had a pretty darn good risk/reward profile.
Nearly every other hobby has a net-negative cash flow:
Golf
Skiing
Boating
Cars
Collectibles (stamps/coins/cards/toys/wine/etc)
Camping
Video Games
Hockey/concert tickets
Rec-League
Travel*
You may recover costs on some of these, but generally it's a one way flow of cash for experiences/consumption. And it's definitely proportional to income. *The one exception might be a vacation home if you can use AirBnB to cover ongoing costs, though sooner or later you'll need something major like a new roof...
Murray gets an owners box to enjoy his fantasy real-life hockey team with a back-stage pass to every event. Is it really a crazy idea that he doesn't need to be entitled to profit on every single aspect of his luxury hobby?
I think the real issue is ego and competitiveness with other owners. I suspect most owners wouldn't be devastated to the point of selling if their team actually cost them a bit of money...but they'd never accept being the only one to face those costs. But still, the question for Calgary is whether another prospective owner might be willing to accept a different line in the sand to get that owner's box? League wide ownership does not want to give up their grift so easily, but I also doubt they want to permit cheap relocation. It would take a whole bunch of stars to align for a buyer seeking relocation to meet a price that would satisfy Murray that is also lower than Meruelo/or any other owner would accept, while also being higher than anyone is willing to pay to keep the team here. I would be more than willing to play that game of high-risk chicken, but I get that others aren't.
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This is one of the few times that I dont really agree with Oliver.
He takes a bit of a hard-line stance that just doesnt seem reasonable. The fact of the matter is, as I alluded to in a previous post, there are benefits to having professional sports teams around. They do 'spread the wealth' albeit in a very difficult to quantify way.
But you cant be held ransom by them. There are a lot of ways that municipalities or jurisdictions benefit from Pro sports teams and they can facilitate that benefit through cooperation, but the revenue model has to be revamped and I think significant importance should be placed on standardizing subsidization deals.
Like a hard 'Salary Cap' on Government aid to sports teams.
You cant have places shooting money out of a T-Shirt cannon at sports teams and then having every other team in every other jurisdiction expecting the same.
It sucks to say, and its just purely my opinion, but the worst thing to happen to the Calgary Flames' arena proposals was the Edmonton Oilers' arena deal.
It was just so, so sweet and the Flames/CSEC wanted the same deal and in no reasonable universe were they going to get it.
Agreed on the Oilers stupid deal giving the Flames the greenlight to push and push year after year for a deal that wasn't coming from Calgary.
But just to note, I didn't agree with the hardline stance of "just say no" to public funding, but did agree with the overall message that cities should not be paying hundreds of millions towards public stadiums while city infrastructure and programs crumble around a billion dollar stadium.
The point about Detroit declaring bankruptcy a few months before agreeing to spend $324mil towards the area project was absurd.
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I'm in favour of public funding going towards arenas/stadiums, as local sports fans do have value in a city, but my numbers are likely laughable compared to what the average, middle-upper class sports fan wants.
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