\Time for the Argos to Buy a 14M Dollar Stadium?

Well I'm just saying, maYBE Toronto needs is the outdoor experience--it worked in Montreal!
Look at the aesthetics comparatively between domed stadiums (which are great for big games) what we saw the other night in B.C. The potential resurgence in football in Toronto could be incredible as we saw when a U2 concert forced Montreal out of the Big AWEfull.

I fully suport the idea of the argos getting a new stadium... and it dosent need to be huge

What part of temporary do people not understand?

The $14m is basically a rental fee for the 2 or 3 years that it’ll be in use, minus the cost of the playing field (which is permanent). You cannot build a large enough permanent facility for 14 million dollars.

we get the temporary, but in three years they could build a proper stadium. Argos can't play in skydome anymore--it is not a football friendly stadium.

how bout, the argos becoming a good team,and the marketing department doing a better job advertising to the 5 million people in the GTA and putting 45,000 in the skydome for every game?

if the dome was full for every argo game, noone would be talking about lack of atmosphere.

i dont want to be paying $100+ every game in a smaller venue.....even if i did agree to pay that much money, id never be able to find someone who would pay that to come with me.

maybe its the with you part that is the problem :twisted:

14 million buys you a nice temp stadium, but you're probably looking in the range of what Winnipeg spent to get a nice permanent facility, 125 million or so.

The Lions are using a temp one because BC Place is being renovated. They can't play there. If someone ever does decide to build a new stadium just for the Argos (don't see it happening, myself), why spend $14 million to build a temporary stadium for them to play in while the replacement stadium is being built if they can still play in the Skydome? Sure, the Skydome is not the best football environment, but I doubt it's so bad that it makes financial sense to build a temporary stadium instead of just playing it out at the Skydome until the new one is ready.

To me, building a temp stadium because the Skydome sucks for football makes about as much sense as it would to rent a car while you look for a new one because the air conditioning broke in your current car but everything else is working fine.

If Toronto ever did build a new stadium, where would be the best location for a new stadium? Woodbine Racetrack? Downsview? York Univ.?

Which is a bigger plus....lots of parking or access to public transportation?

It worked for bc

BC did not build the temporary stadium so that the Lions could build a new permanent stadium somewhere else. They built it so that the permanent stadium that the lions usually play in could be renovated, after which they will return. The situation proposed by the original poster is not the same as the situation that the Lions currently find themselves in.

If the Argos are going to move out of the Skydome to a new (entirely hypothetical) stadium, they can just play there until the new one is done. There would be no need to build a temporary stadium.

I agree but why can't the Argos move into a permanent stadium for only about 30 million

Because you can't build a permanent 25,000 seat stadium for $30m. The proposed 15,000 seat stadium for the Pan Am Games is supposed to cost $100m with another $50 to bring it to 25,000-30,000 seats. The stadium in Winnipeg is $125m. BMO Field cost $62.5m in 2007.

Only way something like this would make sense for the Argos is if someone gifts them the stadium (good luck with that). Otherwise you're basically renting the stadium at around $5 mil/year for the 3 years that it's suppose to last. That would be a financial suicide for the level Argos/CFL are operating at and considering they have a pretty good deal right now.

I don't see how the cost can jump from $14 million to $114 million because the stadium is permanent? $100 million buys a lot of concrete. I frankly doubt Empire Field cost only $14 million. That was the projected cost using the old FieldTurf from BC Place, but they bought brand new turf for $2+ million instead. The cost of Empire Field is lumped into the $440 million budget for the new roof at BC Place, which is just one phase of the stadium's redevelopment. There is a further $100 million being spent on other renovations, new seating, sound system, concessions and HDTV screens.

CFL stadiums have also been built for much less. It reportedly cost only $1.5 million to build the 22,000-seat stadium for the Sacremento GoldMiners CFL team in the early 1990's.

Who really knows if you could build another Empire Field for $14 million...or $34 million? Especially when money is no object to the BC government when it comes to providing the Lions and their fans with the best stadium in the world. :thup:

i agree i think to get a world class stadium of 30,000 you have to pay one hundred million. and i think that is what the cfl wants too. classy looking stadiums makes the cfl looks big league.

A temporary stadium only makes sense if it is part of a larger plan, as in BC IMHO. Remember the Argos are still ok in the RC. If TFC had of had to play at the RC, my guess is that the team would be in dire straights right now with support. Hopefully a long term plan of the new owners once Braley sells (if things don't work out in Hamilton with Bob Young and the TigerCats I'd love to see Bob take over the Argos to be honest) will be a new stadium somewhere in the GTA.

Existing teams with a place to play already should not be looking for a place like what's at Empire field. Where a stadium like that comes into play should be in cities that are thinking about joining the league, like say Moncton or Quebec. In Moncton they can look at it for ways to provide a temporary expansion of the stadium that will be used for the game this year to put a team in sooner rather than later, and then convert the temporary part over time into a permanent structure. Same thing in Quebec. If there was an owner ready and willing they could put up a temporary facility like the Empire field one on the cheap and do permanent conversions in stages over time. I don't think it would be feasible to keep a stadium like that long term. The unique charm lasts only so long, and soon fan game day experiences will dictated who and how many will show up, especially if the team is struggling.

Except Empire from the TV perspective only does not appear or have the view of a temporary stadium.
Man when you see it and compare it to the "mistake by the lake" called BMO and which we the taxpayers got hosed for $68M, I still can't believe that figure.
Which one would you rather have?
And never mind the beautiful mountains which we cannot duplicate.

[quote="Xvys"]
CFL stadiums have also been built for much less. It reportedly cost only $1.5 million to build the 22,000-seat stadium for the Sacremento GoldMiners CFL team in the early 1990's.

This isn't true. The Gold Miners played at Hornet Field, an existing field used by Sacramento State University, which was originally built in 1953. Fred Anderson might have put 1.5 million dollars into the stadium to make it CFL ready, but it still had porta-potties and all the concessions were outside the stadium served by private street vendors.