Well, that came pretty much out of nowhere:
City officials say they’ve reached a deal in principle to replace Calgary’s aging Saddledome…
The costs, as announced Tuesday, total more than $1.2 billion.
That’s significantly higher than the previous arena estimate, which had increased to $634 million when CSEC, owner of the Flames, withdrew. That deal involved more than $300 million in public money. Talks restarted late last year.
First of all: The CBC said “aging,” everybody drink! Second of all: The reporting is otherwise accurate that since the Flames owners withdrew from their previous arena deal in late 2021, not only has the total cost of the project somehow grown from $550 million to $1.2 billion (the arena itself is now budgeted at $800 million, with the rest for such sundries as a parking garage and the ever-popular “other costs“), but the public’s share has gone from $300 million to $837 million, $537 million of it from the city and $300 million from the province. I’m not 100% sure that this would be the most expensive hockey subsidy of all time — Judith Grant Long, please update your spreadsheets — but I can’t think of one larger. And it certainly seems to be a sign that Flames execs knew what they were doing when they bailed on the previous plan because they didn’t want to pay $10 million in cost overruns.
This deal is still far from final: Though the Calgary city council reportedly approved the deal in a unanimous vote yesterday — public hearings, schmublic hearings — nobody knows yet where the provincial money would come from, and there’s a provincial election coming up at the end of May that could change who’s in power. All the same, the Calgary arena situation went from “Public won’t put in more than $300 million, Flames owner says ‘then screw it'” to “Here’s a check for $837 million, don’t spend it all at once” in a relative eyeblink.
More once the dust settles, I’m sure, but this is a major raising of the bar for indoor sports arena subsidies, coming the same day Nashville already raised the bar on outdoor sports arena subsidies, in a city that was once known for holding the line on sports subsidies. It’s a good day to be a sports billionaire, no matter what sport, and no matter what country.
https://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/calgary-event-centre-update
“Sharp said aside from money already set aside from the previous failed project, the city will pay the remaining costs out of the fiscal stability reserve, meaning homeowners will not see their taxes increase because of this deal.”
Yeah, what’s the point of fiscal stability when we can say No New Taxes?
“We found it in a desk drawer, that doesn’t count as real money, right?”
If the Flames don’t like the Saddledome or 300 million Loonies, the Gas South Arena is in Gwinett County. Did Sherman burn down Lawrenceville? Sherman sure didn’t burn down Calgary, but Bettman is trying. Would moving the Flames to Gwinnett County count as a third try in Atlanta? But then the Coyotes wouldn’t be able to move to Georgia.
That won’t happen. Calgary it too big and has too much corporate wealth to gamble on an Atlanta move. Winnipeg and Quebec City moved south but they’re tiny compared to Calgary. Winnipeg and Quebec City combined are smaller still smaller than Calgary.
Wpg & QC are both around 800k population. Calgary – even if you include the surrounding towns within an hour in all directions – is still less than 1.4m.
That said, I think DPT was speaking a little tongue in cheek on that one… no-one seriously believes the Flames were going to leave Calgary as there is nowhere better/more lucrative for them to move to.
Just like no-one seriously believed the Oilers were going to leave another top 8 market for an unproven one, free new arena or otherwise. Or that the Yankees were going to move to New Jersey…
It’s surprising they held out as long as they did. Always seemed to work pretty good to bring up a) “you guys are missing out on Taylor Swift and Kiss because of your stadium roof!” b) “Edmonton has a big new arena, are you guys less than Edmonton? Are youuuuu?” and c) “The Flames are going to leave and become the Portland Flames! This is an actual threat in a place that almost always sells out and has incredible fan loyalty!”
It works because we have a Premier who is desperate to win seats in the city of Calgary in the upcoming provincial election and is trying to buy votes. The Flames leaving was never a threat as they are top 5 in NHL attendance and top 5 in ticket prices. If they move neither of those would be true in their new home and their valuation would actually go down.
This piece seems to suggest that it’s costing a lot more because they’re building a lot more.
It’s not clear why, or by how much, the cost of the arena itself has gone up in the last two years.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/calgary-jyoti-gondek-flames-csec-danielle-smith-csec-1.6821925
Aren’t all arenas aging. Except of course for TimeStandsStill.com Arena.
The Flames owners are popping champagne corks today as desperate politicians caved in and will now spend $850 + million of tax dollars on the arena. crypto.com just paid $700 million to rename the Staples Center and Scotiabank paid $800 to the Leafs so the Calgary arena is worth at least $400 million so the Flames owners get a free arena thanks to the tax payers.
Desperate politicians? Why should the politicians be Desperate? What are the Flames going to do? Move to Kansas City or Tulsa? The Arizona Coyotes are already desperately searching for a new home after being thrown out of Glendale and about to be thrown out of Tempe. Calgary is a major business center with rabid hockey fans and what would happen to the Battle of Alberta? Let the Flames pound sand.
Well, I guess we know who the mayor of Calgary really works for this morning. Too bad she didn’t point that out during the election.
The Flames weaseled out of the first deal as they had signed to cover all the cost overruns and then balked when the project cost ballooned from $500 mil to $700 mil due to supply chain inflation. They then wanted a new deal and now instead of $350 mil of public money our Premier has now thrown in $900 mil in public funds as she wants to win Legislature seats in the city of Calgary in the upcoming election in May. Note she was the only politician(none of the City officials did) wearing a Flames jersey like she was an employee of the team. This is called the taxpayer being fleeced and their pocket picked by Billionaire owners of a sports team who espouse unfetter free markets and capitalism but can’t manage to finance a private deal(no investor is that dumb) and shamelessly took a corporate welfare cheque.
Amen. Murray Edwards is also a non-resident for (income) tax purposes… so great is his commitment to free markets capitalism. Oh, except when oil prices tanked. Then he had his CEO beg the province to impose a production cap on all producers, because they couldn’t agree to do so themselves.
That’s the great thing about being committed to capitalism… you can always take a powder when capitalism isn’t actually working for you.
Neil,
I am a Calgarian and am I totally outraged by this. When we had a plebiscite to determine if we wanted the Olympics, I voted “No” because I knew an Olympic bid would come with a free arena for the owners. Thankfully the majority of the city shot that down as well.
We have also had two mayoral elections during this arena fiasco, and both times I voted for someone who at the time was against using public money for an arena. Nenshi was good. He basically said if we pay for this, we expect money from the Flames revenue to pay our contribution back.
I voted for our current mayor Gondek, because she was one of the few council members who said “No” to that 50/50 agreement the Flames and city had a few years back.
This same person then voted, unanimously along with the rest of our city council, to accept this monstrosity. I felt like I did everything I could as a citizen to prevent this damn thing from being built, but it is happening anyways. And now I will be on the hook for increased property taxes, and provincial taxes, to pay for this “community” project the Flames will collect 100% of the revenue from.
How do we stop this from happening? Most Calgarians made it clear we don’t care about an arena, and are okay with Flames leaving, and it gets done anyways.
This is so unbelievably sickening. My only hope is that there is a change in political party that would shoot this down, but the odds of them winning the provincial election is not good. Most Albertans vote for the current political party regardless of what they do.
Yeah, it’s incredibly frustrating — especially when elected officials campaign on one thing, and then do the exact opposite.
I don’t have a sense yet of what steps have yet to be taken legislatively, or if there are any legal challenges that can be made. If a different party taking power in the province would make a difference, that’s always one hook — though obviously not everyone is going to be voting based on the single issue of arena funding.
I’ve occasionally said that Joanna and I set out to write a book about sports stadiums, and we ended up writing a book about the failure of democracy. That hasn’t gotten any less true, and the solutions haven’t gotten a lot clearer, at least unless you have a few hundred thousand people with flaming torches.
Well the reason for this is that we have a Premier who is desperate to win seats in the city of Calgary in the upcoming election and it pulling out all the stops spending money like no tomorrow while calling everyone else socialist for spending on public goods for the average person not corporate welfare. Though if you check other Canadian NHL cites like Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver all built their arenas with completely private funds. Not in Calgary which is the home of unfettered free market philosophy for workers but socialism for corporations.