[News] Ken King: Flames' owners no longer pursuing new arena with City of Calgary

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by Cole436

This is idiotic. The Flames will be losing a significant amount of money moving to Seattle. They'll have to pay a relocation fee which will be significantly more than 100 million dollars,

That's yet to be determined. Nobody has paid a relocation fee that large before.

they will have to significantly lower ticket prices,

Also TBD. The Seattle market is one of the most affluent in the U.S., and hockey has more than 100 years of history there.

their attendance will be significantly lower over time (just like almost every American city)

Frankly, the Flames actually want lower attendance. They'd love to be in a building that didn't have 2,000 cheap nosebleeds to tempt fans away from the expensive seats in the main bowl. Every proposal I've heard of for a new arena has a smaller seating capacity than the Saddledome.

they will take a massive hit in merchandise revenue

All merchandise revenue is shared equally by every NHL franchise, except for items sold at a team's own retail outlets.

and they'll lose a significant amount of money from their TV deal with Rogers.

The Rogers deal is national, and like merchandise, is shared equally by every franchise. The local deal with Rogers would be replaced by a local deal in a much larger media market, and it's difficult to say with any certainty how much they would lose in the transition.

The amount of money they would lose over a 5 year period would probably pay for the ####ing calgaryNEXT deal.

This is just silly. Not even the Coyotes are losing $200 million a year.

[DJones]

Originally Posted by TheScorpion

Murray Edwards' net worth is $2.2 billion, and he isn't even the only owner. That figure is also six years old, and it's entirely possible that it's gone up significantly.

The idea that the Flames' ownership is running out of money is patently absurd.

They aren't running out of money, their accountants are probably just screaming at them that it's a terrible investment.

[ToraToraTora]

Things that make fans excited for a new season:

Trading for Harmonic.

Acquiring 2 personable goaltenders who want to be here.

Signing sought after college free agent.

Signing Bennett to a reasonable deal.

Things that don't make fans excited for a new season:

This.

Sent from my XT1563 using Tapatalk

[Strange Brew]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

I mentioned this in one of the various other threads, but sports is such a weird one in terms of how it fries people's brains. Estrada and New Era are total polar opposites politically, yet they both support basically as much public money as it takes to build this thing. It really does blind people and make them betray core principles.

And, as I've mentioned far too many times, people are begging for what amounts to quasi corporate welfare, in exchange for a 100% guaranteed price increase of at least 20% on a product that will, being as generous as conceivably possible, maybe be 5% different. And that that 5% could also mean worse. Just insanity.

It doesn't fry their brains or make them betray core principles. For many on here, their core principle is being a Calgary Flames fan and having the team in their city is simply more important than their political beliefs.

You can't fault someone for knowing what's important to them even if many would make a different choice.

Which is why these debates are so prickly. Shame on the Flames for resorting to scare tactics. And although I generally support the City's stance on this, if Nenshi had wanted to get something done we likely wouldn't be at this point.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by Roughneck

I think if that were the case they wouldn't have made CalgaryNEXT as ambitious as it was, even with the sizable city contribution. They'd still be on the hook for operating the arena, based on corporate dollars driving revenue.

That is a good point, but let's not forget this plan had been in the hopper for a while. Edwards also pulled the plug on Calgary after the plan was present iirc. A lot has changed quickly in the energy sector in the past few years. I agree Edwards is a possible bad actor here, but he's also an amazingly smart businessman. Pulling the plug on a cash cow isn't his style.

[Da_Chief]

I hope Nenshi puts out a statement tmrw saying the city will be contributing $0.00 taxpayer money to any Flames arena and the city is no longer negotiating. They can leave if they want to. Would be hilarious.

[morgin]

Originally Posted by 442scotty

The owners can't stand Nenshi and I can't say that I blame them

I imagine someone who thinks the highly popular and successful bike lanes are used by mere dozens of people and the 6th largest library system in North America is used by mere hundreds might side with illogical and petulant adults throwing a fit after not getting a mere $500+ million thrown their way.

[Roughneck]

Originally Posted by 442scotty

I think the west village idea with a little design tweaking was an awesome idea.. expensive? Yep but the city has no problem spending money on stupid art , bicycle lanes used by a few dozen people at most and let's not forget the $$ spent on the downtown library to be used by maybe ? A couple hundred people?

Throw in the library, the bike lanes, the art, hell, the Peace Bridge and you're still short nine figures (over $250M) assuming a big government funded project doesn't have overruns and the remediation and traffic realignment costs are on the cheap end. Where is it coming from?

But what's another tax hike between hockey fans, eh?

The west village is an awesome idea that with some tweaking would bring a lot of people and money downtown as a complete entertainment district. Nenshi should have thought about it but he didn't and it's burning a hole in his butt.

West Village has had an ARP for a while, and developing it as an entertainment district cannibalizes the city's focus of redevelopment: The East Village. The city knew this when the told the Flames not to look at a West Village proposal, long before CalgaryNEXT was proposed.

[Matata]

Big nothing, there's at least 3-4 layers of BS to cut through before things start getting real.

[Rhettzky]

Oh neat. I just got an email about purchasing a new Adidas Flames jersey... wrong thread?

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by Da_Chief

I hope Nenshi puts out a statement tmrw saying the city will be contributing $0.00 taxpayer money to any Flames arena and the city is no longer negotiating. They can leave if they want to. Would be hilarious.

Well, it would guarantee that the Flames started work on relocating the franchise the very next day. Maybe you would find that hilarious too.

[Joborule]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

Remember the salad days of King proudly proclaiming that the Flames process would be nothing like Edmonton? That the Flames would check all the boxes and everything would be approved basically before it was even announced?

Remember how we all lapped that up?

He wasn't wrong.

Oilers didn't do a MS Paint proposal, and also didn't have the city basically do all the tangible work for them up to this point.

[Makarov]

Shouldn't the real ultimatum be: give us the deal we want or we will put the team up for sale? If that were the rhetoric, I don't think there would be much vitriolic reaction on this forum (or elsewhere) at all. Personally, my reaction would be "fair enough".

[BigT112]

Originally Posted by Rhettzky

Oh neat. I just got an email about purchasing a new Adidas Flames jersey... wrong thread?

Thought getting that email tonight of all nights was hilarious

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

Care to articulate the blame to be placed on our mayor? Frankly he's the lesser of two evils right now.

There's blame on both sides IMO, and on the City's it's the apparent lack of communication and responsiveness to approaches by the Flames. Plus Nenshi tends to be less diplomatic in public statements on the topic.

One other thing - King went out of his way to say Seattle wasn't a factor and never said moving was a next step option. There's a lot of assumptions being made here.

I've seen plenty of acrimonious negotiations that involve one side or both leaving the table (and coming back later). That's still the most likely outcome.

[The Cobra]

Originally Posted by TheScorpion

Murray Edwards' net worth is $2.2 billion, and he isn't even the only owner. That figure is also six years old, and it's entirely possible that it's gone up significantly.

The vast majority of his net worth is tied up in his oil and gas ventures.

While I don't believe he's qualifying for food stamps any time soon, have you seen what he economy is doing in Calgary these days?

His oil and gas investments would have decreased in value probably quite substantially.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by Regorium

How the hell is ticket tax "Flames contribution" when the City is fronting the money?

The city would not front the money covered by the ticket tax. This has been covered several times. I'll say it again: the city does not front the money for the ticket tax portion.

The money would be borrowed. The debt service cost would be covered by the ticket tax revenue.

It has been presumed that the city would guarantee the loan (more likely the province IMO - and if I'm not mistaken, city borrowing is all done through Alberta treasury anyway, so it would in fact be a provincial loan). While it is not certain that they would guarantee it, it makes sense, as that would reduce the total cost of the project.

So what that means is that the amount - $200M presumably - would be added to the provincial debt. I don't want to trivialize that, but it really isn't a large amount. And no, it wouldn't affect the province's credit rating.

Think of it like this: your child wants to get a mortgage to buy a car but can't get the bank to approve it. So you co-sign. You aren't fronting the money, you're just helping them acquire the loan. And unlike your child's loan, there is little to no risk of the ticket tax not covering the debt service, because we're talking about hockey fans in a Canadian city.

Ticket taxes are popular solutions because they basically boil down to two things:

1) the people that want it most end up paying for it, and

2) it is actually a reduction of revenues for the owners, so it is a second, albeit somewhat indirect, contribution on their part

[taxbuster]

Originally Posted by Jay Random

For what it's worth, the laws on defamation have specific exceptions for commentary on public figures. Calling politicians names is an old and legally protected right.

I'm not expert in civil issues particularly, so I suspect that there are more caveats to your comment than may be possible to explain in a forum post.

Nonetheless, it is uncivil, unnecessary and pointless.

eg. saying that someone has acted in a stupid manner is different than saying that they are stupid.

One is a comment, the other simply offensive. ("Protected" or not.)

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by Strange Brew

It doesn't fry their brains or make them betray core principles. For many on here, their core principle is being a Calgary Flames fan and having the team in their city is simply more important than their political beliefs.

You can't fault someone for knowing what's important to them even if many would make a different choice.

Which is why these debates are so prickly. Shame on the Flames for resorting to scare tactics. And although I generally support the City's stance on this, if Nenshi had wanted to get something done we likely wouldn't be at this point.

LOL!

Why should Nenshi want to get something done? His position has been consistent. No public dollars for no public benefit.

God, this is just manically crazy at this point. It's like a cold shower. "If Nenshi had wanted to get something done." LOLOLOLOL! He's not the one asking the flames for money to build an arena!

I just drank a whole medicine cabinet of crazy pills! The Flames just literally grabbed their ball and went home.

The bad faith actors in this scenario are obvious, man.

"If Nenshi had wanted to get a deal done." LOL! Trumpland. Doing Deals, making deals, banging out deals, negotiating deals.

The City has spent millions on this fiasco already, funding studies and proposals the Flames should've brought to the table 7 or 8 years ago.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by taxbuster

I'm not expert in civil issues particularly, so I suspect that there are more caveats to your comment than may be possible to explain in a forum post.

Nonetheless, it is uncivil, unnecessary and pointless.

If it's unnecessary and pointless, why is it a regular part of every campaign for elected office?