I live in Halifax and I can tell you that a CFL team would be a dismal failure??
Very well Said! Most don’t what a CFL team or will not support it. Last thing the CFL needs is another anchor.
Would Halifax help draw in other CFL cities?? NOT!!

Well, what a difference a few years makes. Not only are the Redblacks the hottest ticket in town, but the Lansdowne redevelopment is a resounding success. Oh, and a pro soccer team shares the stadium and draws very repectable crowds as well (nearly 6K a game).

Next week, Ottawa will be hosting the Grey Cup. About $100 million in economic activity will be generated in the span of five days. Two years ago, Ottawa was one of the host cities for the Women’s World Cup. That generated a lot of economic activity as well. None of these things cold have happened without Lansdowne.

The total city contribution to the stadium redevelopment was about $130M, plus the city is now earning property tax off land which used to suck $4M a year in maintenance costs with little revenue. The stadium will continue to generate return on investment for years to come.

While Ottawa is bigger than Halifax and already had a (dilapidated) stadium and dedicated football fanbase, my advice to the naysayers on this string would be to open your minds and have a bit of vision for your city. A stadium is not just a venue for 9 regular-season CFL games, but also the drawing card for all kinds of high-profile events which bring a lot of economic activity into your city. A soccer team would almost certainly go along with the football team, and community sports would likely play there as well. A fan base can be built by making the game-day experience fun for people of all ages and from all walks of life. The people coming out to Redblacks games prove that point.

I’m not saying taxpayers should sign a blank cheque or bear all the risk while others make the profit, but the city should at least be open to working with investors to make it work for all parties. The stadium would be a COMMUNITY asset.

Here endeth the lesson.

Then don’t think that your local high school teams and community groups get any sort of deal on using those facilities. No free rides for you, cheapskate.

LOL soccer has more participants than football EVERYWHERE! Yet when does that ever translate in to widespread embracement of the sport?? Never. Why? Because the only reason soccer has such high youth participation is because it’s cheaper than football and hockey and there’s less chance of injury that soccer and hockey. Soccer has always had huge youth participation. Go back 20 years and you’d have people crowing about how soccer is destined to be the next big thing in Canada with the youth participation numbers being cited as the reason why. The sport never broke through then and it won’t now. It’s the exact same thing in the States. Huge youth participation since forever yet the sport never gains mainstream acceptance. And never will.

Soccer is seen as a cheap, relatively safe athletic activity for kids to do and so parents stick their kids in soccer. Only a minuscule percentage of the kids participating ever end up really taking the sport seriously.

If you think the potential fan base that Hamilton draws from is 10 million then you are doing logic wrong and you should just stop before you embarrass yourself further.

Nobody cares about the feelings of NIMBYs. Why are you even here? This league can only exist through provinces and municipalities supporting the building and maintenance of stadium infrastructures. You’re here on a football blog so that would indicate you have SOME interest in football. Which means you are a freeloader who freeloads off of the financial efforts of centers that have football teams.

Don’t be a hypocrite: go away, don’t watch our product and freeload off of our expenditures and spend your time thinking about fish or being poor or whatever it is grump NIMBY maritimers do with their free time…

They absolutely should help foot the bill in the form of donated land and a permanent property tax exemption if no direct funding is in the offing. “They should not have to foot the bill for these millionaires” is not a valid argument and shows your ignorance of the issue. That argue has merit in the NFL where between ticket sales, merchandise sales, booze and concession sales, corporate sponsorships and the TV deal owners turn a profit in the hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

But NOT in the CFL where the best of circumstances (that really only applies to a couple of teams) sees teams making a couple million a year but mostly a good year is when teams don’t lose money. In the CFL’s case those millionaires aren’t really making any money off of football operations and so to add the expense of paying off a stadium over a 20 year period would be to permanently put them in a money losing situation.

Make no mistake: a stadium is public infrastructure that the public benefits from. Local businesses alone stand to make a lot of money off of hosting Grey Cups, for example. So while Halifax may be averse to contributing any money directly the City DOES have a civic responsibility to contribute in some way to infrastructure that the City will benefit from. No free rides for the owners, sure, but ALSO no free rides for the City.

Population doesn’t mean everything on the high side. That’s certainly true, but you do need a certain minimum population, and if you are in a smaller centre you need to make it easy for people to come in from farther away. I think the MLS example is a misplaced one. TFC may outdraw the Argos in Toronto but they have 1/5 to 1/10 the television audience. Far, FAR, more people are interested in the CFL than are interested in MLS. TFC has been around for over 10 years now and they still can’t draw 6 digit TV ratings, in spite of playing in a centre where millions of people came from soccer crazy counties. That’s a failure story not a success story. The NBA is another league that’s waaaaaay over hyped in terms of fan interest in Canada. The Raptors had their blip in the playoffs two years ago, but even then I think their high point, a record, was 1 million viewers. But as soon as they dropped back in the standings, and something else new came along, people forgot then even existed.
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