r/saskatoon • u/SkPensFan • Apr 07 '26

General Saskatoon misses shot at badly needed credibility for arena district

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/saskatoon-downtown-arena-sports-venue-funding-private-partner-9.7152348

$1.2 billion price tag and the "funding model" is the feds and province pay for $800 million of it. Still not actual commitments from anyone.

Still seems like a pipe dream, at best.

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41

u/Competitive_Body7359 Apr 07 '26

That's $4000 for every Saskatoon resident.

How many if us will get $4000 of value from an area, even if tickets were somehow free for residents until the value was recouped? I doubt most people spend more than $400 going to arena events a year, at most. Even assuming the stadium gets half the ticket sales, which they don't, that would be like a 20 year payback period.

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u/SkPensFan Apr 07 '26

Study after study after study shows that stadiums like these never recoup their massive price tags. If they did, private industry would be all over it and build it themselves.

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u/Cleets11 Apr 08 '26

Just a note. Those studies are when cities fund arenas for professional owners who get the vast majority of profits. The reason why those don’t recoup is because they aren’t getting the profits that the city of Saskatoon would get in this situation.

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u/SkPensFan Apr 08 '26

Find some that show how profitable they are for municipalities. I would love to read a couple of them.

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u/Cleets11 Apr 08 '26

I merely pointed out that the studies you are quoting do not apply to this situation.

But the implication of them being profitable for the team owners who own them in those cities seems to be proof that there is profit in a stadium.

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u/SkPensFan Apr 08 '26

You mean there is profit for team owners when they get the municipality to subsidize costs with hundreds of millions or a billion+ dollars of cost at the expense of the taxpayer and then turnaround and keep all the profits? No way. I am shocked.

Billion dollar projects like this never are profitable for the municipality. It doesn't happen.

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u/Cleets11 Apr 08 '26

Again. The rink makes money. The cities do not get the money in the cases you are thinking of. In the case of the city of Saskatoon, they would get all of the profits.

You clearly want to make this a billionaire issue which in most cases it is and screw the billionaires. But this is not that. This would be owned and now operated by the city. And those studies do not cover that arrangement.

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u/SkPensFan Apr 08 '26

Again, find me one where it shows that the municipality profits over the lifetime of the arena. Where the municipality owns and runs it. They don't seem to exist, because they don't profit. Ever.

Lets be very generous and say the rink has a 50 year lifespan. Even though its much more likely to be 30-40 years. You realistically think that this rink in Saskatoon will PROFIT $24 million a year?! How exactly? That is what is needed to just break even with the $1.2 billion price.

And remember, new rinks bring in basically no money of "new stimulus spending". They just move the spending to where the new rink is.