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Calgary Stadiums and Arenas

Something tells me this is just a little retaliatory hardball by King and the Flames Org. Over the whole "Plan A" is dead business. Plan A probably is dead, but the team didn't seem ready to hear it.
 
I think a lot of this is talk mostly. The owners will do what they can to try and get as much as they can.There's no reason they would be more profitable in a place like Seattle. To the owners it's either sell the team and get their money or move it and retain ownership....either way, I'm not sure it would be as good as they have it here.
I think most are in agreement that plan A is dead, and that they need to move on. We are mostly likely looking at an arena only situation, and then they whole question of public money gets revisited.
 
Although it looks like both sides are pastoring, there is really only one side and that is an arena someplace not in West Village. The West Village proposal looks good in the renderings, but that is about the only part of it that actually looks good. IMO nothing about West Village make sense. It's Way too much money and the location isn't great.
The fFames need to let go of the idea of West Village, and simply move on. Keep it simple, keep it to one arena, keep the funding simple.

Even though the flames are owned by very wealthy people, and they should have no problem building an arena on their own, I'm not totally opposed to some public funding.
 
In addition to the crazy cost of the arena/stadium/field house (pegged around $900M-$1.1B) the cost of the creosote remediation and additional infrastructure would really have added up again on top of it. I know the remediation has to be done anyway, but let's not rush to do it on the Flames' timeline. I'm a huge fan of the team, but not of the ownership. I think they're leeches. While I wish we lived in a world where people could pay for things they want by their bloody selves I know that public money is an inevitability. I just hope the negotiate a fair deal. The 75% proposed by the team for CalgaryNEXT was outrageous.

I agree with you. I think it's all posturing.
 
Oddball, I think you're right about the public money being inevitable. I'm hoping it's not too much, as the arena is something the owners should be able to pay for themselves.
Remediation aside, I never really liked the West village location. Victoria Park Stampede grounds are is a much better spot IMO. West village has a chance to be a nicely developed area with good housing stock. The proposal would wipe all of that out. Victoria Park is already tied to the Stampede, so adding an arena would change much.
 
Here's a fairly illustrative graph. Were I the owner of probably anybody from say the Bruins and up I don't think I'd ever dream of moving my team. And If I were an owner of anyone from the Sharks on down, I'd probably leap over if anyone was silly enough to move out of one of the markets above me. Of course I'd probably still make the case with that new city that I'd need public money to entice me into moving. :p

One must always cite their sources, this is HockeyDB's attendance data.

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I also found a blog that has average ticket prices. The Flames have the 6th highest ticket price in the NHL this year. Mind you according to this ticket prices have declined by 30% over the last 3 years according to this. However, I don't know what the Blog's methodology is. If the prices are all in US, then the decline is entirely due to the exchange rate.

Additionally, I think we all understand that economic factors in the city are probably the main reason the Dome hasn't averaged as sell out the past few years. People can't afford to see what was for half the year a pretty questionable on ice product if they're worried about keeping the lights on.

Suffice it to say if the Flames decided to try their luck in a crazy untested market like Seattle and I were the owner of the Coyotes, I'd be saying "Yahoo!" pretty quickly.
 

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That's a good graph Oddball, you're probably right on the money with you analysis. I'm not sure about Winnipeg and Ottawa as they are Canadian markets and should be okay....though I wonder about Winnipeg with its small market combined with a salary cap that has been rising, and a Canadian dollar that is now low. Does anyone know how the Jets are faring these days?

Anyhow, the Flames are a good market overall, like you say. I'm not sure how real the threat of moving is. I can't help but wonder how much of this is also driven by concerts? The talk has been focusing on hockey, but looking at all the concerts passing by Calgary, you bet that it has the Flames owners itching.
 
darwink said:
Yeah, ~$100 million direct, ~$100 million associated infrastructure, and bingo, bango, Bob's your unlce.
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Yep. ~$500 Million can get a really nice arena, and if ~$200 million of that comes via public funding, the Flames ownership would have no excuse not to get on with it. I think even ~$100 Million would be enough.
 
I don't know how well the two sets from my previous post marry up, but I put the two together to make a per-game revenue estimate (average attendance x average ticket price). And this year Calgary comes in 6th for this year and averages 5th over the three year period.

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Apart from the Flames which are the obvious topic of discussion here. I think the wide disparities between the Ranger's and Lightning's revenue and attendance rankings are quite interesting. Shows how significant ticket price is in terms of revenue. It's also interesting that despite their drop in attendance, the hurricanes are actually making more money this year due to a ticket price hike. It would be interesting to see how much consessions, jersey sales and broadcasting add to each team's revenue.

Speaking of broadcasting, I think yet another reason the Flames would never be allowed to move is Rogers. As owners of the Leafs they have a board seat and would never allow a team to relocate from one of their core markets. At least so long as their broadcast distribution deal is in place.

If the supposed missed concert revenue is really what's at issue here I think the Flames are missing the mark. They're a hockey team, not concert promoters. No one would allow them to draw the line between the amount of side business they can do as a justification for moving the team.

Surrealplaces said:
That's a good graph Oddball, you're probably right on the money with you analysis. I'm not sure about Winnipeg and Ottawa as they are Canadian markets and should be okay....though I wonder about Winnipeg with its small market combined with a salary cap that has been rising, and a Canadian dollar that is now low. Does anyone know how the Jets are faring these days?

Anyhow, the Flames are a good market overall, like you say. I'm not sure how real the threat of moving is. I can't help but wonder how much of this is also driven by concerts? The talk has been focusing on hockey, but looking at all the concerts passing by Calgary, you bet that it has the Flames owners itching.
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Re: Winnipeg, I believe they turned a profit despite their small stadium. They rank a healthy 12th for ticket revenue in my estimate over the past three years. The dollar probably did hurt them though as they droped to 16th for 2016-17. Forbes in their annual Business of Hockey report from last year shows's that they've had a positive operating income since relocating from Atlanta.
 

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I don't know if concerts are a main issue, but definitely an issue. With 20-30 concerts being missed out each year, that's a lot of revenue, especially when it happens year after year.
 
They are an issue in that missing revenue nights that are close to capacity hurts the business case.
 
Does anyone know what kind of revenue arena owners would get from a concert? I'm only guessing here, but suppose even $30 per person was taken out of each ticket for a concert of 18,000, that would behalf a million dollars. It might be much less than that, but 30 concerts a year could be quite large amount of revenue over a 20 year period.
 
Surrealplaces said:
Does anyone know what kind of revenue arena owners would get from a concert? I'm only guessing here, but suppose even $30 per person was taken out of each ticket for a concert of 18,000, that would behalf a million dollars. It might be much less than that, but 30 concerts a year could be quite large amount of revenue over a 20 year period.
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Especially since that $30 (which is high, but still) is contributing towards covering a fixed cost.
 
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