Bomber Finance

I think Wad is still a bit gun-shy about approaching the lender (govt. Manitoba, I believe, even though its in a shell company) to alter the loan re-pay.
Even a severe bomber over-ride guy like myself wouldn't be that unhappy to see

A - a flat rate million dollars per anum re-pay
B - a ticket-tax repay (both on walk-ups and seasons)
C - 10 to 15% of net operating profit (after all other expenses)
D - 33% of occasional Grey Cup profits (the announced profit will no doubt be suppressed if this comes into play)
E - 15 to 20% of all non-football associated rents (concerts, car shows, religious revivals, soccer, other sports, etc.)
F - Food & beverage tax?

This scenario would protect the team for disaster-type seasons but benefit the lender (us) for good seasons and affiliated activities.

Wadzilla would rather take the Michael Cohen/Josef Goebbels poison pill before giving up the bolded data!

With option B and D I would simply include option E within B. Bombers do about 300 000 per year, add in one concert even and then a few other events and you are at 4-450k. Charge 5 bucks a pop and it and you have 2+ mil a year. Personally…pay the full 4.4 per season…this would be about half, maybe a bit better of that.

Things like the CPL will help as well…if it ever takes off. Even if you have 5000 people there, it is 10k a game…maybe 100k per season.

It would be nice to see the team sock away about 40-60% of a profit of 5.1mil net cash flow. A few years of that in a row allows you to have some confidence in expanding things like scouting presence and other football expenditures.

***note that apparently the 10 mil loan I mentioned before was paid off in full in around the start of the season last year. That loan is also why they were behind in stadium payment…it was agreed to let them pay that higher interest off first.

I would expect the True North Organization to at the very minimum double profits - ie. 10 million annually vs. 5 mill. in operating profits.
At the time they had finished off paying the 10 mil loan off they had apparently paid 3mil of the 85mil owed...they were budgeted to have paid down 13.5. When you add that other load in there, they have been paying the 4.5mil out...there was simply the gap to allow them to cover off the higher interest.

…After all is said and done… and in the final analysis, the bottom line is (I like talking bottom lines) the Winnipeg Blue Bombers play in a brand new (well almost) stadium…which was mentioned in the Jets telecast when we eliminated Minnesota last night by the way… Media people see it as a positive in this city…There was no future with the old stadium…Bombers needed a new venue or I’m sure by now we would be in a monetary crisis of great proportions…Sure we are in debt for the place, but I’ll venture to say we wouldn’t exist continuing down the ol Polo Park road…Could it have been built different??Could it have been in a better location??? Maybe but everything is hind sight now… Most stadiums cost ‘A lot’ of money and are notorious money losers…Stadiums also have problems initially until all the wrinkles are ironed out…I’d say most fans are happy with the new digs and I’m sure one day most of the young fans of today will see the joint paid off…I think it’s time we say a little thankyou to the people who got this venue off the ground and pushed for it to happen AND appreciate our position in the league…We could be in another CFL city where things aren’t quite as rosey

Tom Brodbeck article from the Sun. Seems very complicated, perhaps by design.

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers last week reported net revenues of $5.1 million for 2017 after an increase in ticket sales and an uptick in corporate revenues last season.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t change the fact that the football stadium – paid for with tax dollars – will never be repaid in full. Not even close, actually.
It was a good year for the Bombers by all accounts, not only in the win column but also for the club’s financial statements. Tickets sales were up, buoyed by a strong walk-up crowd and a home playoff game. And there was a notable increase in corporate partnership revenues.
After the club’s loan payment of $3.5 million to Triple B Stadium – which owns the facility – the Bombers posted a profit of $1.57 million, according to its audited financial statement. That’s an improvement over the $1.65 million loss the previous year. (The Bombers don’t call it a loss, they call it a $2.8 million profit, but that’s before the 2016 payment to Triple B Stadium).
Either way, the Bombers are in the black, they’re drawing strong crowds by CFL standards and they’re making good on all their debt obligations. Barring a significant drop in attendance, there’s no reasons to believe the football club can’t continue to meet its loan obligations.
But that’s where the good financial news ends.
Triple B – made up of the University of Manitoba, the city of Winnipeg and the Bombers (the province appoints one director to the organization) – borrowed $160 million from taxpayers, through the U of M, to build the stadium. The rest of the construction costs were financed through provincial and city grants. There were also some smaller loans, including a $10-million bank loan, which have been repaid.
The $160 million was split into two loans, a $75-million Phase One loan and an $85-million Phase Two loan. The Phase Two loan is the one the Bombers are supposed to repay by 2058. Lucky for them, they didn’t start accruing interest on their loan until Dec. 15, 2017. That means at a 4.65% interest rate, they’ve saved over $19 million in interest charges over five years. That has helped their bottom line immensely during that period.
Those interest charges have instead been added to the Phase One loan, which taxpayers are ultimately responsible for. The Phase One loan is supposed to be repaid from property taxes generated at the former football stadium site at Polo Park. However, development there has been slow to materialize, especially with the closure of the Target store in 2015. The property owners announced earlier this year there would be new tenants moving into the building, including a call centre. But it remains unclear how much that asset will generate in property taxes.
Only $2.3 million in property taxes have been paid to Triple B from that site as of March 31, 2017. But because the Phase One portion of the loan is accruing its own interest of 4.65% a year and had to cover the interest from the Bombers’ loan, the amount owing on that loan has skyrocketed to $117 million.
In fact, because there’s no reasonable expectation now of the Polo Park site repaying that amount, the province was forced to write off $56 million of it for the 2016-17 fiscal year, which was tacked on to the provincial deficit, money government has to borrow to cover.
So where does that leave taxpayers?
There’s still $117 million owing on the Phase One loan. However, barring a miracle, that will never be repaid in full. The expectation now is that $61 million of that loan should be repaid from property tax revenue at Polo Park, but even that’s doubtful. There could be a further write-down if there’s no reasonable expectation that all of it will be repaid. Either way, taxpayers are on the hook for it.
Meanwhile, there’s still the problem of the stadium deficiencies that have to be dealt with. Triple B took out a $17-million loan guaranteed by the province to repair major cracks and other problems with the building. The province has agreed to guarantee up to $33.1 million in loans to pay for deficiency repairs, as well as a $2.2 million line of credit. It’s unclear who will ultimately pay for the repairs as Triple B is still battling that out with contractors in the courts.
As of March 31, 2017, taxpayers are still owed $199 million, not including the deficiency loan. That number will keep climbing and more of it could be written off in the future.

This was a bad deal cooked up by the former NDP government that taxpayers will be financing for a very long time

Seems like it is a pretty good monetary crisis the Bombers have going.

Question: Do the Bombers pay property tax on IGF ?

For me it was always about the game being played. I never wanted for anything and always felt safe. Saw a lot of good football played there. I get that it is not the corporate revenue generator that they wanted. Never once did it occur to me the stadium wasn’t suitable for the 12 times a year you go.

Did not care for the trough.

Who would those people be? Asper, Selinger, Katz? Was it the Siegel making deals?

Bottom line is you go wherever they are playing if you want to see the game live. It can be a lot of fun. Really can’t say as there has been anything special about the new stadium for me. I have a long drive and gave up season tickets two years ago mostly because of the arrogance of Wade Miller. I feel I am less passionate about the Bombers and more interested in the league now. Still dislike the other 8 teams more so I cheer for the good plays and watch what happens.

The hero and the villain in this apparent 1/3 billion semi-fraud is Greg Selinger.

Slinger, who may have been medically unfit for office at the time - got so sick 'n tired of the back 'n forth between fraudulent arena builders like Dave Asper (and his group of turds) and city hall, bomber organization, others that he just wrote a clean cheque (on our chequebook btw) for over $200 million - just for starters!

The grabbers of the cheque - Asper and some of his associates were so eager to erect the thing before Slinger put a stop-payment on the cheque they failed to appoint a proper over-sight manager on the project - perhaps at an extra million to 1.5 million, yes, extra cost but money well spent vs. how the project degenerated into a ménage a trois of inferior materials, poor workmanship, union spats, unprepared contractors & exceptionally feeble HVAC & water/sewer systems.

Slinger, the premier was so fed up with the process he just cut the cheque and walked away. Asper was palpitating so ferociously with that $160 million cheque in hand he just gave the go ahead to a merry band of dozies to get the thing underway.

So Slinger is the HERO + due to no oversight - HE SHARES PRIMARY VILLAIN STATUS - WITH DAVID ASPER.

The contractors & subs, mostly men of unfit character status - primarily men waiting for easy prey - FOUND IT.

and here we are!

Thing got built - very poorly in terms both objective and subjective. Debt is too high to support life of facility. Write off will eventually occur - but when. My guess is in around 15 to 20 years - perhaps with $150 to $180 million still owing on the thing.

People who don't support pro sports supported the mess cuz Selinger cut the no-strings cheque.

For sports people that's a minor victory. For a province over 20 billion in debt not so much.

Funny thing - in 20 or 25 years, expect the process to begin again. IGF will be falling apart, fresh fear-mongers will materialize. New David Aspers will come up with their own stadium-generating software and so it goes. A new stadium - maybe 500 to 800 million in fresh money - with all kinds of false assurances and new lies. TURN, TURN, TURN.

If the powers that be would just be truthful...
Read Brodbecks article closely, the WBBFC and the shell game that holds title to IGF owe more today than they did last
Year! Please don't tell me the financial picture improves year to year, the debt is rising!!
The club did not meet its loan obligations, therefor those funds WAD claims are profit simply are not. They are, as I understand, an accounting liability, funds held that are rightfully not yours.

Cmon big guy, stand up and simply say "it's probably out of reach but we are doing what we can".....the high road will be respected.

Funny how quickly a shell game morphs into a smell game!

....Quoting guys like Brodbeck is a non-starter...The guy was against anything and everything about the new digs...before and now after it was built.....I don't know how some people can't come to the realization that we would have NO football in Winnipeg without a new stadium ...I loved going to the ol girl at Polo Park as well...A LOT of fantastic memories there BUT time moves on and you can't live in the past...Sometimes it takes somebody to take the bull by the horns and look into the future and make something happen...I'm glad they did and if you took a poll the majority of Bomber Fans would agree it was worth it... Here's a question??Will we ever pay off the national debt??...not bloody likely...but we pay down a little (sometimes) and live with it...Will the world end tomorrow because of that fact....not bloody likely...Enjoy the game....life is short and sometimes you have to learn to go with the flow..

Good advice.

Might be worth the fight if pro sports were actually important.

…You got it joe…there are a lot more higher priorities in life than sports…although I have to think awhile to come up with one…lol
…One thing in life that would bug the heck out of me right now…would be us sitting here with our old stadium,( thank goodness that didn’t happen) while the green guys to the west would be all over us gloating and laughing us right out of the CFL…
…Someone mentioned the old trough in the old Canad Inns…I hated it as well but could tolerate it when I stood over the rider logo at the bottom of it…heh heh

…Talking about frauds…who remembers when Filmon was running the show…and at present the vacationer Palister…
…I know everything in life is political Lyle but I prefer to take my shots at the game…makes for better commentary

The province of the hooded green monsters may never have built their facility without seeing what the bombers managed to do (faults & flaws aside) when Selinger finally cut them an open cheque.

Haven’t been to Regina yet but I suspect they avoided a ton of the flaws IGF had built into the woodwork - just by simple observation.

Cost structure of Mosaic Stadium is also much sounder than the helter-skelter accounting for IGF.

Lyle..I've noticed you do not address questions of you often.

But could you tell us how many games do you attend each year at the new stadium?

Fight Lyle and your fighting me about that.

300+ Bomber home games for me. 4 over the past two years.

What’s your point? We are not a real fans?

Who's fighting? Ah...you are I guess.

Anyway that's interesting I guess Joe but I wasn't asking you. But thanks for sharing.

Guess what Joe - there is NO RIGHT ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION - its a tactic used by the mopes and chicken-hawks on bomber forums (who have all banned me for life - most for asking incisive questions of management, some of which are on display in this thread)

If one answers 250+ games - the trained mope (assigned by well known and explosive ban artists who parade as board monitors) will then proceed to ask WHAT ERA?

As if that even matters!

If the answer is 1 game - the trained mope-assassin will then say - I TOLD YOU SO. This guy doesn't support the team so he's not entitled to post opinion.

When one hits a nerve - one hits a nerve!

The only real question is what bomber board insider put them up to the task of asking this 'amazingly incisive question'.

Paps I do love the game and I'm very pleased that the stadium got built, I am always excited to go enjoy it.
Perhaps I mis spoke; I just don't understand the spin and enema smoke on the numbers....
There is no profit when you haven't paid your bills!!
To represent the finances as the club does is to say that the fans are idiots. This is Trumpish, if the club met its contractual obligations to its principal lender the club would be broke. And I'm ok that they didn't, in fact I'm envious. My banker talks about foreclosure and calling my loans (what's he going to call them?) when I even suggest I might be a bit short this payment...

Now go sign a quality MLB and use that money you didn't spend on your financial obligations.
No one will care, but please, don't tell us you made a profit, just tell us you fended off the lender and won the cup.

Sounds like there is enough money to buy a soccer club and really confuse things coming soon.

I don't get any of it. Triple B owns the stadium but Bombers book revenue. To me it seems they are focused on generating revenues to distract from football operations and like Wumper is saying. Confuse the bored and deceive the people. Province writes off everything in the end.

Football ops will be their downfall in the end and something they should focus on in the short term imo