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Originally Posted by Acajack
On that list I think I might put CFL in Halifax above or at least equally likely to NHL in Quebec City.
The others are all super longshots.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by EpicPonyTime
CFL to Halifax is the only one I see happening within the decade. The NHL doesn't want to come to Quebec City.
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The economics of a CFL stadium are admittedly pretty lousy, though. No one is going to build one on their own dime, so it's up to government to save the day.
Mind you, governments build indoor arenas but even in cases where a government signs on to a hot mess of an arena deal, you can kind of, sort of rationalize it by pointing at 100+ event nights a year plus spinoff developments (ICE District type stuff). That kind of thing doesn't happen with football stadiums.
For a metro of 400,000, spending $200 million on a stadium is a daunting proposition. (I know Regina did that and more, but Regina is a serious outlier given that the Riders are a very established team that's practically at the core of their identity.) You look at a US metro of comparable size, and most of their stadiums are going to be either big, old and dumpy (Mobile, AL) or small, old and dumpy (Flint, MI)... and that's despite football being a much bigger deal down there.
So it's still a bit of a longshot IMO. Quebec has the advantage of having a building and an ownership group completely ready to go... now they just wait for two existing NHL teams to hit the skids at the same time (not an impossible prospect given the sheer number of teams... they can't all be firing on all cylinders... all it will take is a combination of a lacklustre team + economic downturn) and then they can swoop down and snatch one.