Halifax group launches season ticket drive for potential CFL franchise

A release issued by MFLP says the ticket packages will require a $50 deposit. Those putting down the money will be placed on a priority list for season tickets should Halifax eventually get a team.

As well, those fans will also be eligible to participate in a Name That Team contest.

The release says a Halifax CFL team could on the field as early as the 2020 season.

“This is a big day for Halifax and Atlantic Canada,” Anthony LeBlanc, founding partner for MFLP, said in a statement.

“It’s a day football fans have been waiting for and an important step towards bringing another professional sports team to this region.”

A week before Wednesday’s announcement, Halifax regional council voted in favour of a staff report looking at a thorough business case for MFLP’s proposed 24,000-seat stadium on the Shannon Park lands in Dartmouth. That staff report, which will look at the controversial plan to fund the stadium as well as associated infrastructure costs, is expected to take six months.

The stadium itself would cost up to $190 million. Municipal chief administrative officer Jacques Dubé told council last week that Halifax wouldn’t own the debt or the stadium. MFLP founding partner Anthony LeBlanc said his group would take on the operational risk, pegged at about $3 million annually, but he wouldn’t say who’d be taking on the capital risk.

Sports economist and Concordia University professor Moshe Lander has been critical of both the stadium’s location and the ownership group’s choice to launch a season-ticket drive at this stage in the process.

– StarMetro