Do you support the proposal for the new arena?

  • Yes

    Votes: 89 65.0%

  • No

    Votes: 39 28.5%

  • Maybe

    Votes: 9 6.6%
  • Total voters
    137
I would be amazed if we can build an arena without CSEC involved, but I'm really curious how another partner will end up sweetening the deal for them as well. Murray Edwards is a capitalist, he's only interested in making money...
 
Financing an arena is not possible without a tenant to guarantee a huge number of nights.

The except for 1 exception , the only tenants in North America that can do so are sports conglomerates. (Only two non-sports groups with ‘private’ arenas, 02 in London (it’s renovations were so extensive it was as expensive as new), and the coming MGS sphere in Las Vegas)

The goal with an arena is to get it used the most number of nights possible to spread the costs out over as many users as possible. When the Saddledome was only the Flames and concerts/events in the early 90s the nightly rent produced enough revenue to generate a yearly loss of $9 million plus in ~’94 dollars.

An arena without the Flames is just not going to happen.

leases can be structured in very different ways. Headleases are way easier. No complicated financial flows, optimizations.

Why not charge CSEC by the night? Frankly the reasonable charge if concession and ad revenue is retained by the arena owner is negative: paying the Flames to play there.

The economics of arenas are counter intuitive and break our brains. Because of that it is really hard politically to get them done.
 
Mountain Man said:
I would be amazed if we can build an arena without CSEC involved, but I'm really curious how another partner will end up sweetening the deal for them as well. Murray Edwards is a capitalist, he's only interested in making money...
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Having just seen Batman I wonder if billionaire kids grow up dreaming about becoming batman (in the sense that they "save" their city). Katz up in Edmonton has/had that idea about buying the Oilers and building "Ice District". Understanding it was always a way for him to make more money but still what's there now is better than the parking lot that was there before; outside of the team on the ice, mission accomplished. All this said with the caveat that "Ice District" didn't save Edmonton.
 
MissingMiddle said:
I have a limited knowledge, does anyone know of teams/cities that have struggled this much to get an arena built?
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Every one. Even 'private' ones like Toronto fell apart multiple times, had multiple ultimatums issued, had weird financial flows between all levels of government and multiple crown corporations in the end.

In Ottawa the 'private' arena had a low interest loan that required provincial cabinet approval, and $6 million from the federal government. The 'private' deal was still subject to a plebiscite by the city.

In Montreal while the arena was 'privately' financed, the entire project at 3x the dollar value was a massive public private partnership—lots of upzoning and lots of public land contribution. Sort of like an east village type arrangement!
 
Also wasn't there some fenagling in Edmonton before they got theirs built? It went through, but it involved public money, and I recall there was opposition to it. Same for Pittsburgh IIRC.
 
Looks like the roof will no longer be an issue ;)

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I seriously think it'd be really cool for the arena to have a retractable portion. Obviously have it mostly closed, but say there's a chinook on game day in January, open up the roof and have a semi-outdoor game. It'd play to Calgary's strengths and make it the most unique arena in the league.

We know how CSEC feels about spending money so it'll never happen, but of all places for that idea to work, Calgary is probably the one.
 
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