Calgary Flames CEO Ken King holds presser about new arena deal

After what was proposed by the city earlier today about a new arena deal, Calgary Flames CEO Ken King held a press conference. Here’s what went down.

Earlier this week, CEO Ken King dropped a bomb by saying that the Calgary Flames are no longer in pursuit of a new arena. Leaving Flames fans worried. But we somewhat got over that when we realized why they decided to do that at this specific time. That can be found here as well with all the info you need to know about that situation.

Earlier today, the plan was released about what the city offered the Calgary Flames in terms of a new arena.

It should be noted that $185 million from ticket surcharge would in the end essentially be paid by the Flames. However, seeing how they would get 100% of the revenue, this seems more than fair to me with a 66/33 split Flames/city.

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This called for a live presser at the Saddledome by Ken King that started about an hour ago. I tried my best to Tweet out as much as he was saying as possible, which I’ll show here.

Alright, so we essentially gathered two things from this presser:

1. Ken King has no idea how to answer questions
2. He’s condescending

Every question that was thrown his way, he somewhat responded in a condescending manner.

King, however, did say that they will be releasing the blueprints and their offer next week. What some people don’t understand is how King was saying that they’ll essentially be paying for all of it, when the city is paying for a third of it. It’s getting confusing.

And with that Tweet above, saying “We’re not asking the city to give us money.” I think I’m more confused after this press-conference than I was before it started. And yes, like I showed above in a Tweet, someone asked about that as well. But again, he went on a tangent and never quite answered the question.

King also kept mentioning that what the Flames wanted was an arena in West Calgary (the CalgaryNEXT project). However, the city refused. But unlike King said about how they were “ridiculed and attacked”, the city came out with a counter-offer. Basically, the location wasn’t ideal. It’s far from the Stampede Grounds and ideally, they’d like to keep the arena on Stampede Grounds.

So they came out with a counter-offer of the Arena Plan B deal, but in the end, as we heard from the presser, the city and the Flames can’t seem to come to an agreement.

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Looks like we’ll have to wait another week for the blueprints and the offer from the Calgary Flames to get more clarification. But if it’s held by Ken King, we may not get any clarification at all.