Stadiums & Arenas of Canada, Part 3

[JHikka]

For Langford, it’s game on for stadium with 8,000 seats

Cleve Dheensaw / Times Colonist
MARCH 1, 2018 05:56 AM

Langford plans to expand Westhills Stadium to 8,000 seats, from 1,718, in what could be a game-changer for outdoor sports in Greater Victoria.

It would put the region in the capacity range of what would be required for the upcoming professional soccer Canadian Premier League, B.C. Lions exhibition CFL games, and for certain international games featuring the Canadian men’s and women’s soccer and rugby teams.

http://www.timescolonist.com/sports/...ats-1.23188068

[MonctonRad]

Still 2,000 seats less than the Moncton Stadium, for a CMA 3x the size.

Canadian municipalities are so parsimonious......

[esquire]

^ In fairness, it's about what the municipality needs as opposed to the size of the municipality.

Interesting that they're wedging it in so tight against the buildings at one end, that isn't leaving much room for future expansion.

The article mentions BC Lions exhibition games but I honestly wonder how much appeal that idea could have to the team... when you consider that a game at BC Place would likely have way more than 8,000 in attendance and without basically adding in the cost of a road game, I don't know why they'd ever opt to play in Victoria instead.

[EpicPonyTime]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ In fairness, it's about what the municipality needs as opposed to the size of the municipality.

Interesting that they're wedging it in so tight against the buildings at one end, that isn't leaving much room for future expansion.

The article mentions BC Lions exhibition games but I honestly wonder how much appeal that idea could have to the team... when you consider that a game at BC Place would likely have way more than 8,000 in attendance and without basically adding in the cost of a road game, I don't know why they'd ever opt to play in Victoria instead.

What is the Lions' presence on the Island like? It would be worth it if it gets them some fans.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Still 2,000 seats less than the Moncton Stadium, for a CMA 3x the size.

Canadian municipalities are so parsimonious......

It's not the City of Victoria doing the expansion, it's Langford. Population 35,000.

Besides, like esquire said, it's not about the size of the local population. How many times a year does Moncton actually need 10,000 seats in their stadium? All I seem to recall filling the stadium are one-off events and special tournaments, and those don't happen every year. It wouldn't be any different with a 5,000 seat stadium.

[MonctonRad]

The Moncton Stadium did well for a number od special events (three CFL games, Womens World Cup & U18 Womens World Cup, IAAF Junior Track & Field Championships, Canadian Track & Field Championships x2 etc), but the facility was sadly underutilized last year.

The Moncton Stadium is begging for a tenant like a Premier League team, and although Soccer NB has been promoting this possibility, AFAIK there is no local ownership group chasing a franchise. Sad......

[esquire]

Originally Posted by EpicPonyTime

What is the Lions' presence on the Island like? It would be worth it if it gets them some fans.

It might cost them less to just do something like a free ticket promo for Island residents. You know, spend $25 on groceries at Save On Foods on Vancouver Island and get a voucher for a free pair of Lions tickets, that kind of thing.

I know CFL preseason games aren't always the best attended events, but hell, even if the Lions drew as little as 15 thousand to theirs, they'd still generate a lot of revenue from concession spending and you wouldn't have to eat the costs of moving an inflated roster preseason team to what is essentially another road game.

[Acajack]

I understand the argument about whether a city really "needs" a stadium or not, but I just redid my annual search of the stadium situation in much of the developed and near-developed world, and by and large pretty much every city in the 300,000-500,000 range has a stadium that seats 20,000-30,000, often more.

Most cities in Moncton's size range have stadiums that seat around 15,000.

This includes countries with cold climates like ours BTW.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I understand the argument about whether a city really "needs" a stadium or not, but I just redid my annual search of the stadium situation in much of the developed and near-developed world, and by and large pretty much every city in the 300,000-500,000 range has a stadium that seats 20,000-30,000, often more.

Most cities in Moncton's size range have stadiums that seat around 15,000.

This includes countries with cold climates like ours BTW.

Canada's a little weird in that we're probably one of the only countries that doesn't have a legitimate domestic soccer league, though. We have a domestic football league but there's only one tier (well, two if you count university football) and it's not easy to get a team into the CFL. So that limits the need for stadiums to some degree.

[someone123]

It's a bit odd that there is so much concern about public spending on stadiums in Canada yet publicly-funded arena projects are common.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by someone123

It's a bit odd that there is so much concern about public spending on stadiums in Canada yet publicly-funded arena projects are common.

Arenas do tend to be well used... hockey sort of replaces soccer in the Canadian sports firmament relative to the rest of the world. No matter the size of your town, you're going to have a hockey team. From NHL down the ranks through AHL, major junior, junior 'a', junior 'b', junior 'c', high school, midget AAA, etc. So if you have an arena, it will be used.

By contrast stadiums (as opposed to mere soccer/football fields) tend to be necessary only for teams playing at the top flight of competition in Canada. MLB, CFL and MLS teams need big stadiums. Minor league baseball, USL (or its equivalents) and CIS football teams need small stadiums. Then beyond that you don't really need a stadium. Moncton is a fairly rare example of a Canadian municipality that built a legitimate stadium without a major user.

That said, the cities that need stadiums tend to have them. Halifax is really the only place I can think of in Canada where lack of a facility is really the only reason it doesn't already have pro teams in football and soccer.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by someone123

It's a bit odd that there is so much concern about public spending on stadiums in Canada yet publicly-funded arena projects are common.

Arenas can be used far more often for events (community or otherwise) than stadiums. From concerts and tradeshows all the way down to memorial services and high school graduations. Most stadiums are limited to 6-8 months of the year operating at full service because of weather; Canada is such a frozen wasteland for 4-6 months of the year it makes sense that we would put more money, as a society, into covered buildings.

[someone123]

Sure. Arenas also generally cost a lot more money per seat than stadiums do. What is the difference in value per dollar spent?

The frozen wasteland argument seems dubious. Don't they have CFL games in late November sometimes in Regina or Winnipeg? Do people not attend those? Typical conditions on those days in those cities are colder than they are in some other Canadian cities in the dead of winter.

Halifax (and Dartmouth) actually used to have multiple stadiums. There were 3 or 4 of them at one point. They were smaller (around 5,000 seats) but so was the city. Yet today there are a lot of people in Halifax arguing that it is a terrible idea for the city or province to invest in this type of public infrastructure. I think there's a bit of a double standard, and that the underlying motivation has more to do with conservative penny pinching than with a real consideration of the merits of these projects.

[esquire]

^ As I mentioned before, Halifax is really the only city in Canada where a relatively large new stadium seems like a no-brainer as far as civic amenities go. It's big enough to attract an anchor tenant in the CFL, it would probably have a soccer team of some sort (CPL or otherwise) playing in it, and Halifax is big enough to attract major one-off stadium-sized events such as concerts.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ As I mentioned before, Halifax is really the only city in Canada where a relatively large new stadium seems like a no-brainer as far as civic amenities go. It's big enough to attract an anchor tenant in the CFL, it would probably have a soccer team of some sort (CPL or otherwise) playing in it, and Halifax is big enough to attract major one-off stadium-sized events such as concerts.

In most any other country Quebec City would have a 25,000-35,000 seat stadium.

[esquire]

^ Agreed, but Quebec does have a 12,500 seat stadium which is fine for its purposes. Unlike Halifax, I don't think Quebec would be a slam dunk for a CFL team even if it had a 30,000 seat stadium.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by someone123

The frozen wasteland argument seems dubious. Don't they have CFL games in late November sometimes in Regina or Winnipeg? Do people not attend those? Typical conditions on those days in those cities are colder than they are in some other Canadian cities in the dead of winter.

Grey Cup is late November with Playoff games in November. If you take out that month you're still basically left with December-March of Wintry conditions, and the CFL is moving its season forward a few weeks for 2018, leaving November empty for most teams.

Even so, a single CFL team provides for nine regular season games, a handful of preseason, and perhaps 1-3 playoff games in a given year. For seven months you're looking at maybe 15 home dates per team per season. If you have a shared facility (BC Place/BMO Field) this doesn't seem too bad when being supported by another major tenant.

An arena for, as an example, a CHL junior hockey team, would host 34 regular season games, plus a handful of preseason games, and perhaps 4-8 playoff games on average. For seven months you're looking at between 40-50 home dates per team per season.

When the arena isn't be used by the hockey team it can be used for other sports, concerts, or whatever else generates revenue. A stadium is mostly unusable between December-March, and then possibly for some revenue-generating events from April-September/October. At TD Place, between December-March the stadium sits empty as the Arena beneath churns out a pretty constant stream of events. The Davis Cup tennis tournament, held in February in the arena, is an example of an event that cannot be held in an outdoor stadium in that time of year. Arenas are simply open to more events and permanent tenants as a whole.

I'm not saying stadiums shouldn't be eligible for public funding like arenas seemingly are, but from a public useability perspective I can understand the issue. You might enter a stadium twenty times a year for any sort of event for half of the calendar year, but you can enter an arena over double that amount for events year-round. Even with revenue per seat at a CFL game being higher, it's the mental perception of access and usage to the facility that's the main hurdle, seemingly.

With the CFL requiring 20K+ stadiums there is no middle ground for cities to build smaller stadiums. There are no 5K-20K stadiums in Canada because there's no tenants for them. This is the space where the CPL will presumably slide into. Cities like Victoria and Halifax are already on their way to filling that void, alongside Moncton.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by JHikka

Grey Cup is late November with Playoff games in November. If you take out that month you're still basically left with December-March of Wintry conditions, and the CFL is moving its season forward a few weeks for 2018, leaving November empty for most teams.

.

Though that won't change the number of dates those stadiums are used each year.

[Denscity]

BC Place with record crowds for World Rugby 7s this weekend.

[cjones2451]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ In fairness, it's about what the municipality needs as opposed to the size of the municipality.

Interesting that they're wedging it in so tight against the buildings at one end, that isn't leaving much room for future expansion.

The article mentions BC Lions exhibition games but I honestly wonder how much appeal that idea could have to the team... when you consider that a game at BC Place would likely have way more than 8,000 in attendance and without basically adding in the cost of a road game, I don't know why they'd ever opt to play in Victoria instead.

I think it only makes sense if the Lions held training camp there at the same time. There is some fan base on the island and I know they do market there but costs add up to travel by ferry, maybe get a hotel etc. If they can market to the island and increase TV numbers and sell some gear too, it overall may have a net positive result.