Question 4: How much money do you think should be used from public money on a new arena and how much should the owners pay? (Keep in mind that out of the Calgary Flames six owners, two of them have networths over $2 billion, one has a $6 billion company, and three are among the 100 richest Canadian’s list).
Jonathan Boulanger
This area is really out of my expertise I’m sorry I can’t really give a definitive answer.
Alex Hoegler
New arenas these days easily cost over $1 billion. But if the owners really want a new arena, then they should fork out the money. We know that’s not going to happen. I think no more than $300 million of public money should be used. But I’m sure at least double of that will be needed to get a new arena project started.
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Dan Raicevich
A 50/50 split is always fair. The ownership group is not like Stan Koenke, owner of the Los Angeles Rams, who can just casually drop $2 Billion on a stadium plan. By doing a 50/50 split, the city of Calgary can charge rent to the Flames to play in the arena. The ticket revenues they make can help pay off the building with a Ticket Tax/User Fee. The public funding of a CRL, a Controlled Revitalization Levy, is a reasonable model to fund the arena. It is commonly seen in newer arenas that are built across North America. It was a funding plan used in the new Oilers arena. A ticket tax is commonly used in the funding of a new arena.
50/50 split seems to be fair, even a 60/40 split would be ideal (60 percent paid by CSEC). This is common practices across the board in funding for new arenas.
Ramina Shlah
I definitely agree with Alex here. I’d like to see more than two-thirds of the money being owners money and less than one-third being public. But that’s ideally. Realistically, I don’t think that would happen. If a compromise were to happen, it would most likely be that the public is paying at least 50% of it. Which isn’t right, but that’s business in this day and age I guess.