190 replies to this topic

[lanforod]

No. Get a private partnership. The governments are broke.

[Nparker]

Correction:the TAXPAYERS are broke. Government is just broken.

[lanforod]

Right.

[spanky123]

Sounds like we need to hit the conservatives and ndp up for funding for a new scoreboard and a stadium upgrade with federal money alongside! Elections upcoming get what we can.
Host a lions game a year, host national rugby. Get some CPL games, baseball and maybe some Canadian women’s soccer or Canadian u20 soccer.
Filler up

 

Nah. City hall wants an off leash dog park. 

[Victoria Watcher]

The full cost to the City of Victoria of hosting Touchdown Pacific, which culminated in a game between the B.C. Lions and Ottawa Redblacks at Royal Athletic Park, will be tallied in a report expected in November.

 

Council agreed this week to ask staff to provide a report on all the city’s costs, including resources used for prep work and set-up.

 

“We received a lot of very positive and negative emails about this particular event. And that’s why I really want to put this motion forward,” said Coun. Marg Gardiner.

While there are benefits to hosting that kind of high-profile event, she said, there are also financial costs and costs to the neighbourhoods where they are held.

 

Deputy city manager Thomas Soulliere said after events like Touchdown Pacific, staff always do a full analysis that includes total cost to the city and revenue generated as result.

 

The event wrapped with the Lions’ 38-12 victory over the Redblacks in front of an over-capacity crowd of more than 14,000 at Royal Athletic Park on Aug 31.

 

The city’s contribution to the event included $350,000 in financial support, the venue and hosting events at Ship Point for two days before the game, as well as a watch party at Central Park on game day.

 

Victoria police and reserve constables provided traffic control on game day, there was a free bike valet at Central Park and a free park and ride shuttle, and Crystal Pool and Fitness Centre closed early on Aug. 31.

 

 

https://www.timescol...pacific-9582766

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 28 September 2024 - 08:26 AM.

[Nparker]

...The city’s contribution to the event included $350,000 in financial support...

As a Victoria taxpayer, I will gladly accept this expense over the CoV funding of the Dowler Place drug den any day.

[Mike K.]

Can’t professional sports fund their own business ventures?

[lanforod]

That’s a decent point. But just look at Oakland. Clearly they won’t, even if they can, because other cities will pay instead.

[Victoria Watcher]

Still lots of tickets left (10,000?) for the Grey Cup game only about a month away in Vancouver.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 22 October 2024 - 03:01 PM.

[Mike K.]

Edinburgh’s Heart of Midlothian F.C. soccer team is 51% fan owned. The fans have all the control. It certainly makes taxpayer investment into the team much more palatable.

[Victoria Watcher]

The Green Bay Packers are the only publicly owned team in US professional sports. From its early years a century ago, the team has belonged not to a tycoon but to the people of Green Bay, Wisconsin, and their descendants as a non-profit corporation. Like my brother, sister, father, aunt, uncles and cousins, I inherited shares in the Green Bay Packers from my great-grandfather, Packers Hall of Famer Jerry Atkinson. Our family called him Poppy.

Unlike other stocks, Packers shares are not available to trade on Wall Street, do not pay dividends, and do not fluctuate in value based on performance. There have been only five public offerings of team shares over the past century, and outside of direct purchase during these periods, buying or selling of shares is forbidden. The only way to pass shares from one owner to another is within an immediate family. No one may amass more than 4% of team shares. This structure has kept the team in the town of Green Bay, the smallest market in all of North American sports. The Packers will never have to contend with an Art Modell or Dean Spanos, who moved beloved teams from their homes to cities where they had no fans at all.

 

Is QB the most taxing position in sports? It's close enough to make no difference

Read more

Packers shareholders elect a board of directors, and the directors’ executive committee decides matters that would normally fall on a team owner. The current 45-person board includes six former players and a local tribal leader – as well as Marcia M Anderson, the first Black woman to be a US army major-general, and Valerie Daniels-Carter, a Black entrepreneur-turned business legend. About one in four board members are women; about one in six are Black. It’s not enough for a team that leads the NFL in female fans and is made up of roughly two-thirds Black players, but in a league without a single Black controlling team owner, a seat at the table is a place to start.

______________________

Under league owners’ rules now, no other team can be non-profit-owned; each must have a controlling family with at least a 30% stake. It seems like a transparent attempt to cordon off an elitist club, and to keep raking in millions while insulated from players and fans. It’s high time to undo this policy.

 

https://www.theguard...ed-nfl-football

[Mike K.]

It seems like a really good thing, to have a team owned in this fashion.

[Victoria Watcher]

It seems like a really good thing, to have a team owned in this fashion.

 

It's not good for the league or other owners (financially), that's why they no longer allow it.

 

Teams mostly lose money in day-to-day operations every year, they make money when the league expands (they get a share of the expansion fees) and when they sell the team (the profit over what they paid for it).    

[Mike K.]

If it’s run properly it’s a profit generator.

It is not a given it will lose money. I suspect privately owned teams and leagues that do not allow fan ownership want to propagate a myth that favours them.

[Victoria Watcher]

If it’s run properly it’s a profit generator.

 

Er, no it's not.  Some big market teams with protected territories and big business sponsors might make money (Yankees, Maple Leafs) but smaller market teams can't make money operationally regardless of their competancy.  The players bargain together and have negotiated into place salary floors.  

 

For the most part, pro sports franchises are for wealthy people that already made their money elsewhere.  This is nearly universal across all major sports.   That's why you do not see banks and coprorations buying these things, they are family legacy businesses.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 23 October 2024 - 06:30 AM.

[Mike K.]

Green Bay makes loads of money and is the smallest city to have an NFL team, no?

Hearts of Midlothian made money last year. Even in these challenging times, they made a profit. And they’re the lowest ranked team in the league. Still making money, stadium still full.

It sounds to me more like there is an establishment creating an operating framework that makes it challenging for community ownership, rather than it being a challenge in an open and competitive market. Lots of protectionism in place, in other words.

Then there is the reliance on taxpayers, which I won’t get into, but that’s what makes this whole pro sports team thing not supporting fan owned teams ultra suspicious, when I don’t any of them would exist if taxpayers weren’t willing to build them stadia.

[Victoria Watcher]

It sounds to me more like there is an establishment creating an operating framework that makes it challenging for community ownership, rather than it being a challenge in an open and competitive market. Lots of protectionism in place, in other words.

 

This is true, and the owners want it this way.

 

You can go start your own leage, but you cannot even buy your way into the existing ones without the acceptance of the other owners.

[Victoria Watcher]

Hearts of Midlothian made money last year. Even in these challenging times, they made a profit. And they’re the lowest ranked team in the league. Still making money, stadium still full.

 

UK soccer is a bit different, as teams can and will be promoted and relegated each season.   So generally the better teams are the larger ones with more revenue and salary.  The others typically fall into the league level which most clearly resembles the revenues of others in the same tier.

[Victoria Watcher]

Green Bay makes loads of money and is the smallest city to have an NFL team, no?

 

Ya, but it is complicated.

[Mike K.]

As you know, I am not a fan of taxpayers subsidizing private sports teams. I like the idea of fan ownership of local sports teams, and I’ll be doing more research into this concept.