Arena Negotiation Discussion v2

[Fire]

Originally Posted by GreenLantern2814

Someone has to explain why a downtown facility that can host 300 events a year is a money loser. There's no way to share the costs of something like that where one side doesn't end up raked over the coals and penniless?

How many events does the Saddledome currently host a year? A lot less 300 I would guess.

[Jiggy]

Originally Posted by Parallex

So you want everyone else in the city to subsidize your private entertainment. Gotcha.

All of our tax dollars go into other peoples wants and needs.

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

The other two are arenas in Vancouver and Ottawa: Rogers Arena, and the Canadian Tire Centre. What these two privately funded arenas have in common is that their construction and operating costs were so high they forced their owners to sell them, along with their hockey teams. When the Griffiths family built Rogers Arena in 1995 the population in metro Vancouver was around 1.8 million. Were the Flames owners to commit a half-billion dollars of their own money to build a new arena I have little doubt that the same thing that happened to Griffiths and the Canucks would happen to them.

This just isn't true. It wasn't the facilities that forced those owners to sell, it was other, terrible business decisions that did them in.

Arthur Griffiths decided to buy an Expansion NBA franchise, buy out his siblings, and buy out his business partners with borrowed cash.

Bryden used every shady financial borrowing scheme he could think of and made several catastrophically bad investments in things other than the arena and team, culminating with a multi hundreds of million dollar loan from a subsidiary of Enron. He did that at a time of absolutely terrible currency devaluation.

[Parallex]

Originally Posted by Jiggy

All of our tax dollars go into other peoples wants and needs.

Public wants and public needs... he's saying other people should pay for his private wants. I like going to the Marvel movies but I don't think my fellow taxpayers should be sending half a billion dollars to Cineplex so that I can watch Avengers 4 in a better movie theater.

[DiracSpike]

Originally Posted by Parallex

So you want everyone else in the city to subsidize your private entertainment. Gotcha.

Aren't you in favor of the Olympics though?

[Tacoman]

Originally Posted by Parallex

Public wants and public needs... he's saying other people should pay for his private wants. I like going to the Marvel movies but I don't think my fellow taxpayers should be sending half a billion dollars to Cineplex so that I can watch Avengers 4 in a better movie theater.

Great and rational argument. An arena is part of the infrastructure and fabric of a city. It isn't used by a few people for a few events. It's used by far more people than most things that our tax dollars go to. People get so clouded on this issue and the Olympics. I want great facilities in this city for me, for others, for generations to come. Let's stop pretending that this is about billionaire owners and millionaire players. I want this to be a world class city with world class amenities and I'm more than willing to have our tax money provide for those things. Even better, let's get the Olympics so that we can magnify our tax spending with other people's money and get 6 times the amenities that we otherwise would be getting.

[kermitology]

Originally Posted by The Boy Wonder

As a taxpaying citizen I don't expect much out of our municipal government:

-potholes get filled on my street
-pigeon nests and vermin are removed
-Garbage and recycling are picked up properly

Do I want a new stadium, Yes, because I am one of those "selfish" #######s who gets to go to games on my company's behalf and I don't use peace bridge, bike lanes, field houses, transit, libraries or anything else and I would like to be able to use my portion of tax dollars by going to a nice new arena to watch flames games.

Maybe it's an unpopular opinion but I honestly want to see my tax dollars going to something I actually want, unlike all the 30km/h signs the city is gonna be spending money on...

You know what I really want? I want city council to fulfill their funding commitment to bike infrastructure. Which isn't being built as promised.

[GreenLantern2814]

Originally Posted by Fire

How many events does the Saddledome currently host a year? A lot less 300 I would guess.

People constantly lament the acts that skip Calgary because of the Saddledome's limitations. Surely a new facility would deal with these and afford the opportunity to attract more business.

[ST20]

Originally Posted by Tacoman

Great and rational argument. An arena is part of the infrastructure and fabric of a city. It isn't used by a few people for a few events. It's used by far more people than most things that our tax dollars go to. People get so clouded on this issue and the Olympics. I want great facilities in this city for me, for others, for generations to come. Let's stop pretending that this is about billionaire owners and millionaire players. I want this to be a world class city with world class amenities and I'm more than willing to have our tax money provide for those things. Even better, let's get the Olympics so that we can magnify our tax spending with other people's money and get 6 times the amenities that we otherwise would be getting.

I wholeheartedly agree. Having an arena with a sports team is more than just gate revenue at the arena. It's other tangible things such as the increase in business for bars and local businesses as well as the intangible things (youths getting into sports, buzz around the city during playoff time, tourism and even how the city is viewed by others). I can agree that tax payers should not fund the entire arena (not even half or a third) but I believe that some money should be used to help build the arena because there is benefit to the larger city.

[Parallex]

Originally Posted by DiracSpike

Aren't you in favor of the Olympics though?

Not really. I mean... I wasn't ardently opposed to the Olympics under the right deal but it doesn't look like were going to get the right deal so I'll probably vote no barring some new development.

[badger89]

If we get the Olympics, I'd like to see us go full retro for it. Use the saddledome and all of the other old venues and dress them up in neon colours, play 80s music at every event, and have Eddie the Eagle and the Jamaican bobsledders as embassadors. It'd be, like, totally awesome!

[Parallex]

Originally Posted by Tacoman

It's used by far more people than most things that our tax dollars go to.

So are Cineplexes but I don't think the city ought to be giving them hundreds of millions of dollars to build luxury movie houses. Look I don't have an inherent objection to building an arena... I have an inherent objection to spending 250,000,000 taxpayers dollars so that the Flames (a private for profit business) can make more money none of which will come back to us, the owners of the facility that makes that extra money possible. Show me a deal that sees the taxpayers get some financial upside (or have a true public use utility of equivalent value) and I'll support it.

The Flames are not a public good or service so why should they get public money... because the Oilers did? Sorry I'm not interested in seeing the public spend so much money so the Murray Edwards-Smith can keep up with Darryl Katz-Jones.

[The Boy Wonder]

Originally Posted by Parallex

Public wants and public needs... he's saying other people should pay for his private wants. I like going to the Marvel movies but I don't think my fellow taxpayers should be sending half a billion dollars to Cineplex so that I can watch Avengers 4 in a better movie theater.

I never said other people should pay for my private wants.

I merely expressed my opinion that I, and likely many others like me, would rather see our tax dollars used to fund something that we will actually use as opposed to bike lanes, field-houses, libraries, etc.

In no way was i saying others should be paying for my private entertainment

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Tacoman

Great and rational argument. An arena is part of the infrastructure and fabric of a city. It isn't used by a few people for a few events. It's used by far more people than most things that our tax dollars go to.

NHL hockey is already unaffordable to most Calgarians, and with a new arena prices will only go up. The cost of concerts has also been rising far faster than inflation for the last 10-15 years, to the point where they're now a high-end item too. The events a new arena hosted would be attended almost entirely by the wealthiest 25 per cent of Calgarians, with the middle 50 per cent making an occasional special night out once every couple years.

The things most of your tax money goes to - roads, transit, sanitation, water, parks - are used by almost everybody. Even the leisure facilities like the zoo, heritage park, and leisure centres are far more accessible to most people than $120 concert tickets and $200 NHL tickets.

[Parallex]

Originally Posted by The Boy Wonder

In no way was i saying others should be paying for my private entertainment

That is precisely what you were saying. The Flames are not a public good or service... you're demanding a public cash transfer to a private entertainment company so that you can have fancier digs to enjoy your entertainment in. That is having everyone else pay for your private entertainment.

[Senator Clay Davis]

"Let's give a private company public money so they can turn around and charge us significantly more for what is effectively the exact same product" is still one of the strangest takes on anything, ever. As I said many moons ago, the same quid pro quo for any other private business would lead to an electoral bloodbath. But for sports? Things apparently are different.

[The Boy Wonder]

Originally Posted by Parallex

That is precisely what you were saying. The Flames are not a public good or service... you're demanding a public cash transfer to a private entertainment company so that you can have fancier digs to enjoy your entertainment in. That is having everyone else pay for your private entertainment.

Did you honestly just not read the next sentence I typed after that???

great job cherry picking your quote.

Also funding a stadium is different from a cash transfer to a private entity. The city will own the stadium and lease it to the flames, as the flagship tenant, unless I am entirely mistaken

[Parallex]

Originally Posted by The Boy Wonder

Also funding a stadium is different from a cash transfer to a private entity. The city will own the stadium and lease it to the flames, as the flagship tenant, unless I am entirely mistaken

Not flagship tenant... the ONLY tenant (The Flames will control all operations and revenue streams... they get 100% of in-arena revenue). The lease terms that the Flames want is one that sees them pay half the capital cost upfront and then nothing thereafter. So the lease they want to sign sees them pay no rent (as in zip, zero, nothing). That's why I say that they want $250,000,000.00 (and not the $500,000,000.00 construction cost). The $250,000,000.00 amount is the amount that the city would, by design, lose as in not make back.

[Regorium]

Originally Posted by Tacoman

Great and rational argument. An arena is part of the infrastructure and fabric of a city. It isn't used by a few people for a few events. It's used by far more people than most things that our tax dollars go to. People get so clouded on this issue and the Olympics. I want great facilities in this city for me, for others, for generations to come. Let's stop pretending that this is about billionaire owners and millionaire players. I want this to be a world class city with world class amenities and I'm more than willing to have our tax money provide for those things. Even better, let's get the Olympics so that we can magnify our tax spending with other people's money and get 6 times the amenities that we otherwise would be getting.

Amusing thought considering the Saddledome is half a generation old and already considered "obsolete".

A new arena would not provide us with a great facility for "generations to come."

[Regorium]

Originally Posted by The Boy Wonder

Did you honestly just not read the next sentence I typed after that???

great job cherry picking your quote.

Also funding a stadium is different from a cash transfer to a private entity. The city will own the stadium and lease it to the flames, as the flagship tenant, unless I am entirely mistaken

The Flames' offer was that they pay zero property taxes, zero lease/rent, zero operational costs, and zero maintenance/upgrade costs, but take 100% of the revenue.

Oh and the City has to front the ticket tax too.