The staff report about the Wanderers block is back. The site is too small for the proposed expansion by the Wanderers. Other stakeholders at that site want to expand. Also, Friends of the Commons are against a stadium at that site. It would cost between 77 Million and 92 Million for an unexpanded stadium to be put there for the Wanderers and Tides.
Most councillors on the committee want to build a bigger multi-purpose stadium elsewhere. Strawberry Hill in Halifax was suggested. Some councillors had a tour of Landsdowne when they were in Ottawa recently and were very impressed with it and the new plan. CFL was mentioned during the committee meeting (below).
The report with the options for the Wanderers block will be sent to Council for a debate / vote.
(Also, yesterday, the Mayor said that Halifax’s population will be over 700,000 by 2032.)
Some public speakers at the start… the rest goes from 55:30 until the end.
A population of 700,000 in a few years is more than I thought. It would be downright embarassing not to have a CFL team with those numbers. Regina has far less, Hamilton about the same and Winnipeg not that much more.
Hopefully Halifax is enough of a sports town to finally make it work. I have been there, but unlike you am not a Maritimer so I don’t have any sense as to whether they are or not.
I don’t know much about Lansdowne Park, but I would hope that whoever is responsible looks primarily at the two best football stadiums in Canada in Winnipeg and Regina as models. I realize they will be constricted in their spending by money available and projected usage, but I think it has to be done as professionally as possible. None of this pop up or modular crap I keep hearing about. And of course the lack of a stadium 100% prevents expansion to Halifax so it would be great if that long standing hurdle could be overcome
Get the Halifax team up and running right now without a stadium. If the outlook doesn’t get better after the team is playing on the road for all of their games after a few years shut the team down in the off-season. Doesn’t hurt to try. Home team get 65% of the gate, visitor gets 35%. Each of the ten teams gets 1/10 of the TSN, ESPN, CBS Sports Network money.
Important to note that a MLB team right now, the Rays, is playing temporarily in a stadium that has a capacity according to wiki of 11,026 so while I’m not trying to do comparisons between baseball and football, I think it’s safe to say that a team in Halifax can play in a small stadium for a few years until a new stadium is finished completion or if it’s a stadium being refurbished there.
Before we get too excited about that compare MLB team revenue from broadcasting rights, merchandise etc to CFL team revenue from broadcasting rights, merchandise etc.
Having said that anything is possible if an owner is willing to pay for it but rest assured they would be examining current revenue and taking into account that they would get less broadcasting revenue after expansion. If a stadium actually gets approval then the CFL in Halifax gets some momentum.
One factor I was just thinking of was to try and involve Sid the Kid et al., he’s from Halifax I think, with this meaning if he could invest something in this and talk with the NHL about having an outdoor NHL regular season game there ever so often, say once every 4 or 5 years, between 2 Canadian teams or Boston, lots of Bruins fans I think in NS, that might go a long way for some approvals. I don’t know.
Ok, found this from a few years back:
Good to hear there is at least a discussion about the site being too small for future growth. Question is how many councillors share this view.
70 to 90 million is a lot of spend on a venue that has limited use. One proposal says they can’t even play rugby on it. Moncton would still have a larger venue
Anyone know when the full council vote is scheduled? Looks like all plans made it out of committee 4-1.
I’m at
I’ll believe it when I’ve seen it
I’ve bought into it way too many times now
I hope it comes too fruition
It would be the perfect fit for the CFL
From Coast to Coast
and
A balanced Schedule with less bye weeks which would end the season 2-3 weeks earlier
You can not compare Hamilton to any of the other cities, check a map, within a 100km radius there is at least 8 MILLION people.
Sports franchises use the 100km radius to justify stadiums, arenas etc
Ticats fans can come from anywhere in the 100km radius the team is not restricted to the political boundaries of Hamilton
Halifax has shown great support for the Wanderers, their supporters started petitions, Facegroup site and lobbyed the council to get a stadium on the Common and a franchise.
It’s in an ideal place in the centre of Halifax and they are happy with 8k to 10k crowds, after all it’s the CPL and not the MLS.
There is no group trying to get a CFL franchise, no fan support, no fans lobbying for a CFL stadium.
Halifax is not getting a CFL stadium and not getting a CFL franchise
No doubt Hamilton has a larger surrounding area to draw from, although I’m not sure that has much impact. Are you saying that some of the millions travel from Toronto to Hamilton to watch games there when they can barely get 10,000 to a game in Toronto? I doubt it.
No one is saying that Halifax has a team yet, just that there is some renewed hope. The biggest problem is a stadium. If a proper stadium gets approved and bulit I am fairly optimistic that someone will step forward as an owner. Better to have a stadium and no owner than the other way around. At least the biggest problem is being tackled first.
And how I’m hearing concerned councillors, no one is advocating building a stadium to hold a CFL team now.
They want to look to the future and not have a facility that locks them in on piece of land that at an early glance is too small and too many stakeholders.
Build a stadium 8-10K seats just do it somewhere else where the footprint allows expansion when the business case comes through.
