POLL: Continue or scrap the Crestwin Bomber stadium project?

Bomber club announces stadium deal at noon today

CJOB News Team reporting
12/21/2010

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers are holding a press conference at noon today to announce further details of the new Stadium deal...

In a statement released yesterday, Board Chairman Bill Watchorn and club President Jim Bell promised to outline their "plans on moving forward with commercialization of the new stadium."

The club is expected to explain how they plan to pay back the $85-million loaned to them by the province over the next 40 years.

CJOB will be carrying the conference live.

I fully expected this announcement on Friday expecting the participants involved to hope to minimize public scrutiny over the Christmas holiday.

I expected this announcement BEFORE council voted.

I can't wait for this fable announcement.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhh. So that's how they're gonna get the dough....
Sell 2000 more tickets...
Add six bucks to all tickets...
Boy... There sure will be alot more fans rooting for the Bombers!!!
...at home, in front of TV, with a six-pack, and why not, throw in a large pepperoni pizza on the coffee table for appetizers.

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/Bombers-to-roll-out-business-plan-112211094.html


LOL oh man that is funny. These guys can actually say this with a straight face?

what I dont understand

$6 facility fee
+10% ticket tax


why not just make it an set amount? or a set percentage?

I can seriously see a good chunk of things staying away.

like... amateur football..
or concerts.

Sheesh if this is as creative as they can get.... I dont even give them 4 years to fold.

Trouble with that WFP article is it is incomplete. I listened to part of the announcement at noon. They said the entertainment fee (tax) is already built into every ticket price. I believe they said that was set to expire in 2013 and now would be extended. Indefinitely I suppose.

That "facility fee" will add about 10% to my Bomber ticket price. This will not cause me to revisit the purchase of those tickets. I imagine others will however. That said, the novelty of this new stadium, coupled with the "fear" of losing "good seats", and most season ticket holders will renew. IMO.

Again the novelty of the new stadium, and the pure shititude of the existing stadium, will attract many more fans. At least until the novelty wears off. If the Bombers can put a winning team on the field that would help.

A modest guess for incremental ticket revenue for year one would be about $1.5 million. Add in incremental concessions (personally I don't spend a cent at Bomber games today); parking; naming rights; box seats... And I can see them earning $4 million incrementally.

That is very tenuous. Have a couple more mediocre seasons and they'd be lucky to sell 20,000 seats after the first couple years.

exactly.

first few years....maybe 5... this MIGHT work. but they will have to DIG REAL HARD to come up with other revenue ( stadium shows) that are willing to pay a 10% entertainment tax. Remember...one of the things that got the bombers out of the hole was the removal of paying the entertainment tax on events there, thus allowing more acts to come in.

Don't forget any show bigger than the MTS Centre (U2 for instance) will have only two choices: play at the new stadium or don't play Winnipeg. I doubt that extra tax will scare away too many big time acts. Mind you are there many left in the world? Will anyone want to see 70 year old Bono sing?

the tax scared them away for quite awhile GOM

"They said the entertainment fee (tax) is already built into every ticket price."

wait just a damn second.

if it is already built in
AND they have been forgoing fixing the current stadium for at least 5 years now..

Just where the heck is the 7.5 Million they should have saved up already????

It was reported the ($2) fee went to paying down the debt.

Soo.. it was $2... now its $6 + 10%?

It's good that we signed onto one deal before figuring out any real pricing or putting anyone on the hook for over-runs, then signed onto another deal and rushed it through council before taking a look at the repayment plan to see if it's actually reasonable. I'm still baffled at how we ended up paying Creswin's legal costs in all of this. Guess I'm not too baffled, that's typically how P3s work. Governments are normally completely incompetent in putting together contracts that actually hold companies responsible or transfer any risk onto them.

Can we just fire the board if this is the absolute best they can come up with?

please? Should that have not been in the "agreement" we signed... if the board sucks a$$.. we can fire them?

The board doesn't really care as there's no actual requirement for them to pay back the money. If they don't make their payments for 2 years, outside accountants and business managers need to be brought it, but that's basically it. If they have the money, they'll pay it back. If they don't, doesn't really matter. Another quality agreement we've signed onto before the details were released. Wonder how that Veolia agreement stacks up to this one or the one with Creswin. I'm assuming they are a little better at negotiating than the Bombers and they somehow manged to get a deal in which they never actually need to pay anyone back. And Creswin actually ended up getting legal and marketing costs paid for when it was their poor planning which caused the deal to fall apart. Can't wait until we get into a P3 for LRT.

It's unfortunate that the details of the agreements are what makes them good decisions or not, but that's the information we never get access to until they are already signed.

Amaszngly, I have no comment

Watchorn and Bell have their heads so far up their asses that they nwill never again see the light of day.

Just because they say they can handle the heavy load of the $85 M loan doesn't mean that they can.

That dumbass Bell even had the balls to say that the new stadium will make the Bombers a better team because it will be better for them to practice in such a facility. Can you believe this bullshit?

I wonder if this thread could be renamed.

JTF wrote:Watchorn and Bell have their heads so far up their asses that they nwill never again see the light of day.

Just because they say they can handle the heavy load of the $85 M loan doesn't mean that they can.

That dumbass Bell even had the balls to say that the new stadium will make the Bombers a better team because it will be better for them to practice in such a facility. Can you believe this bullshit?

Well, I think the point is that the $85 M l"loan" is just a way to make the inevitable Provincial contribution look smaller than it is.

They likely can't handle the loan, and you and I will pay for it in the long run, under the NDP or the Tories.

It seems to me that everything is pretty well accounted for, as far as the Bombers increase in revenue stream.
At $4 per ticket and 25,000 seats x 8 games = $800,000 , add parking fees, add 40 business apts, add $2 per beer, $1 per hot dog, and the $85 million will be paid down in due time.
It works, and that is all that is important. The province standing in with the guarantee is remakeable for the NDP government.
I am embarassed to remind everyone that it was the Conservative Filmon government that wouldn't stand up to spend $50 million for the Jets in 1996. That franchise today is valued at $170 million, and Manitoba has lost $500 millon in payroll alone at 20%= $100 million! Oops!
Chicken -sh1t politicians! In my opinion!

Apparently the Bumber Boards won't release their business plan as they say it is proprietary information.

Can you believe the balls on those fu ucken bastards???

http://www.winnipegsun.com/news/columnists/tom_brodbeck/2010/12/21/16639326.html

rosencrentz wrote:It seems to me that everything is pretty well accounted for, as far as the Bombers increase in revenue stream.
At $4 per ticket and 25,000 seats x 8 games = $800,000 , add parking fees, add 40 business apts, add $2 per beer, $1 per hot dog, and the $85 million will be paid down in due time.
It works, and that is all that is important. The province standing in with the guarantee is remakeable for the NDP government.
I am embarassed to remind everyone that it was the Conservative Filmon government that wouldn't stand up to spend $50 million for the Jets in 1996. That franchise today is valued at $170 million, and Manitoba has lost $500 millon in payroll alone at 20%= $100 million! Oops!
Chicken -sh1t politicians! In my opinion!

1. There are at least 10 home games per season. (1 exhibition & 9 regular season games.).
2. You are assuming 25,000 people are willing to go all the way out the university to pay to watch football. If the Blue continue the winning ways they have had for the last couple of years, that is not going to happen.
3. Beers at the current stadium are something like 7.50 now. 10 bucks for a beer is getting pretty steep.
4. A NHL franchise is only worth 170 million if you can find someone to pay for it.
5. I do not think Manitobans want their government to be buying a NHL franchise.
6. I thought I read somewhere the taxpayers actually propped up the Jets franchise for the last 4 or 5 years before they finally left town. Perhaps someone with a better memory than me can remind us about the actuall amount the taxpayers were contributing.
7. I think that $500 million in lost payroll taxes is a bit of an exaggeration. Or are the teams and players contributing 87 million per year over 14 years?

2. All the way out to the University? This is Winnipeg. Nothing is "all the way" anywhere. Perhaps all the people that live in south Winnipeg that did not want to go "all the way to Polo Park" will make up those that are lost due to this relocation.

7. If we use a modest average of $20 million a year over 15 years the payroll "for players alone" would be $300 million. Wanna bet that the overall payroll for the Jets organization would likely be closer to $500 million? Then there are us koolaid drinkers that believe a goodly chunk of Jet spending, corporate and personal, stayed in the community.

The numbers are not to be dismissed too lightly.

Anyway....

The Bumbers will never be able to repay the loan...with jacking up the prices of beer, parking, hot dogs or tickets.

Why won't those bastards release rheir business plan ?

Can it be because it would be ridiculed by a junior accounting student, never mind an auditor or a CA.

Here's the thing: this is a "publicly owned" team right? Then how do they get away without full and complete disclosure?

Here's something else to consider. Two Bomber board members will be resigning. Arguably to make room for one new board member from each of the city and the province. Seems reasonable right?

Until you consider what those board members will be doing. They will be part of the construction team building the new stadium. At least that is what has been reported.

I believe it. Hmmmmmmmmmmm, can you say conflict of interest?

We must change the way that board is selected and who it is accountable to.