I keep reading how Big Bad Bob is doing this to become a parking tyrant and I think this is
1- Beyond stupid
2- Very insulting to the man.
Even if we ASSUME Bob managed to get 5000 fans to park on site and charge them 20 bucks each and we ASSUME he gets to keep all the money. It would amount to at the most optimistic level 1 million dollars a year in parking revenues or 7 percent of the money required to run a CFL franchise.
If you factor Bob has commited to 15 million dollars it would take FIFTEEN years of parking just to recup his investment, not counting the interests lost on that amount for 15 years.
Bob needs a whole bunch of little things done right to break even, we are not even talking about making a profit here. Giving people choices and catering to the many things customers look for these days is not nefarious. Bottom line it costs around 15 million dollars a year to operate a CFL franchise.
You need
Broadcasting Rights money
Gate Receipts
Corporate sponsorship
Merchandise Sales
Parking Revenues
Concession Sales
Cross marketing
Turn at Grey Cup games
You need to put all this together and come up with 15 million. Can't be done at IWS and if it can't be done at the new stadium, Football won't survive in Hamilton.
Who says the cost for parking will be $20.00? The EM site is ideal. I can hardly wait for it. Heck, I can walk to the game from my house.
Hey, if you want to park on my lawn I will charge ya $10.00. I can also fit 3 cars in my driveway :lol:
I am sick and tired of people basing Bob Young. Sure he is in business to make a profit but he is also illustrating his care for the community with the money he has invested and will invest.
The WH site is nothing but a cluster****. Sure, clean it up and develop it into what it was intended- residential and park land for all to use.
From what I have heard listening to poiticians and business people, August 10th will see the EM site chosen and we can move forward. :rockin:
IWS currently charges $20 for parking, via the Scott Park property across the street. That’s where the number comes from. The only thing that EM can provide that WH can’t is ample space for parking, and we’re not talking 5k spots, the number I heard tossed around was 10-20k.
BTW, before you say Highway access, one simple number to remember, 403.
Also guys, WH has proximity to existing rail infrastructure, it has for decades, there is even a Go station nearby that still doesn’t have regular service. So the idea that there will ever be service to the east mountain, which doesn’t even have the infrastructure, is a pipe dream. And so is LRT, since LRT isn’t even proposed for the east mountain.
Wow I did not know that 403 provides direct access to the WH. I always thought that you had to go through some city streets to get to the WH location. Am I wrong?
Well, I don't care really in the end where the stadium goes as long as we get it because I want to really keep the TigerCats in Hamilton after reading comments like this in The Star from the Storm Cunningham article:
Why do the ticats have a say? The CFL is a dying enterprise, and like it or not, is a bushleague at best at the moment. So, the city of Hamilton should be the only one with a say as to where this stadium goes - as they will be stuck with it longer than the ticats will.
Why shouldn't Bob make money from parking or anything else related to the team? If the owner doesn't make money we're back in the 2003 panic mode - remember that?
Because making money is evil and anything that claims to be for the “public good” is wonderful. Besides, how dare Bob Young try to make money in a business? Doesn’t he know he should keep losing $5 million a year in order to keep the Ticats around for the ungrateful fans of Hamilton?
Making money is a good thing, but he can make money at WH. Considering HE is only paying a small fraction for this stadium, then why should we bend to his will just because he wants to FORCE us fans to drive to the stadium?
Also, good job calling in the mod to clean the thread of actual logic btw.
And yes, he will be Forcing us to drive there. There will never be LRT to the east mountain, and there will never be GO service to the east mountain. So what is left? Cat Express? big deal that's already overwhelmed, in addition to the 3 other bus routes that service the area around IWS.
In response to the OP, the only difference in revenue between EM and WH is parking, and the ticats get plenty of everything in that list, and at a ridiculous price for terrible beer, on e might say the get too much in some areas. Then consider that the team, yeah the guys that actually do what people are paying to see, they get paid a mere pittance, so little that we can't retain alot of good players. So am I crying for poor BY? Nope, don't think so. Entire OP statement is moot.
So do I have a problem with the team being profitable? A plain and simple no. Do I have a problem with people being ripped off? Indeed I do.
WH will make money, EM will be highway robbery. Don't cry for BY, he isn't paying for the bulk of this project, the taxpayers are.
But the Buffalo Bills force everyone and his uncle to drive there in some suburb of Buffalo called Orchard Park and yet they have 57,000 season ticket holders for a team that hasn't made the playoffs in how many years?
I know, it's the old "Earl, you're comparing a CFL team with an NFL team", I know, if it's the NFL it works and it fits in with all the green stuff and everything but if it's the CFL, well then, they don't know what they are doing now, it's "old thinking", the Bob Young is a goof and is an old thinker (read that on Raise the Hammer).
Whatever.... waiting the responses now please...
Why do the Bills have so many season ticket holders for a "sprawl stadium" with no public transit except some special buses from Buffalo that go out there. And don't tell me it's ok because it's the NFL, please...
It would be like a guy on RTH who told me I'm comparing apples to oranges when in fact I was jsut trying to point out even teams that make loads of money like the Yanks look for parking money, from wiki (and the Yanks dont need parking money, I heard that at one time even if not one person atteneded a single game, they would still make money because of their huge TV contracts):
New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner began campaigning for the building of a new stadium in the 1980s, even alleging unsafe conditions around the original Yankee Stadium despite the possibility that such statements could discourage attendance at his own team's games. Among the options allegedly considered by the Yankees ownership was moving the team across the Hudson River to New Jersey, as well as the West Side of Manhattan, which was the same site where the proposed West Side Stadium that the would later be considered for the New York Jets.[8][9]
New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani had already been instrumental in the construction of taxpayer-funded minor league baseball facilities MCU Park for the Mets' minor league Brooklyn Cyclones and Richmond County Bank Ballpark for the Staten Island Yankees. Shortly before leaving office in December 2001, he announced "tentative agreements" for both the New York Yankees and New York Mets to build new stadiums. Of $1.5 billion sought for the stadiums, city and state taxpayers would pick up half the tab for construction, $800 million, along with $390 million on extra transportation.[10] The plan also said that the teams would be allowed to keep all parking revenues, which state officials had already said they wanted to keep to compensate the state for building new garages for the teams.
Why should he pay anything towards construction if it goes to WH? The city’s plan is to take almost all revenues off the team, have them help pay for construction then start paying over 1/4 million a year in rent? You honestly don’t see any problem with that? Would you sign that deal?
All it would take is for the city to at least offer up something to the club that in their own opinion is necessary to make this work, but so far in the WH dealings they haven’t strayed a bit from everything outlined in the Deloitte.
City staff even warned council that making assumptions about other parties involvement could toss this whole thing in the sr, but even warnings from within their own ranks were ignored.
Feb/11/10 the city releases the Deloitte outlining how they think things should work, Feb/18/10 the team says it won’t work for them without some concessions being made by the city and a re-working of the revenue sharing, after all they are being asked to help pay for it so it’s not unfair to expect some kind of sharing to be forthcoming, especially since the city has outlined quite nicely how they plan to recover almost all costs they (taxpayers?) put into it.
How is this being taxpayer funded when the city claims they’ll be getting all their investment back while the team is somehow expected to give up an initial investment and fight like hell just to find a way to break even.
We are now right exactly where city staff suggested this would be, in the sr.
I could care less where the stadium goes, as long as the team and the city benefit in the future, unfortunately the only way that’s going to happen is if the city makes some serious changes to their projections on the WH, and so far that doesn’t look like it’s going to happen.
Is Buffalo really a good example though? If they are so successful why are they whoring out their games to Toronto? Buffalo is a dying community that would have been far better off having their stadium on the shores of Lake Erie benefitting their downtown and keeping it vibrant rather than some godforsaken exurb.
One of the reasons IW doesn't generate money on 6 of the 7 days the TICATS don't play there is because there are no concerts. (After the Pink Floyd fiasco etc etc) If the stadium is located at the WH site aren't we going to run into the same problem generating non-football related revenue?