The Winterhawks have strong support, even in crappy seasons. They average something like 9K for minor league hockey (in the moda). It wouldn't take much for them to average 15K -17 for the NHL.
As I was expecting that to be you're response I did, and the conclusion is that it doesn't work. http://gardner.utah.edu/_documents/publications/finance-tax/sports-stadiums.pdf I never said or questioned whether the city would care if the billionaire made money, my question was who made out better? But since you brought it up, I am sure Seattle cares a lot that new owners bought the Sonics and moved them. Imagine if Seattle had forked over money for a new stadium just to have the team leave later before the city broke even on its initial investment? Economically it is basically proven that it's never in the best interest of the city to publicly fund a stadium, that was my point. You may have a theory, but I have evidence on my side.
Uh, the city has all the cards. They can make the owner agree to stay for 50 years if they are gonna agree to finance the stadium. Problem solved.
You make the choice of buying the tickets. You wouldn't have to if you didn't want to. Many others would, and they would enjoy themselves.
They haven't always been. And why is it people who don't think NHL (or NFL or MLB) would survive here always bring up the costs, as if the city is dirt poor and no where else in the US ticket prices are high?
You're making wild assertions, neither of them are based on facts though. No team has a 50 year lease or commitment, no the city doesn't have all the bargaining power. Unfortunately usually the owners do because they can threaten to take their team away from the city if they don't cough up tens of millions of dollars. It's hard for an elected official to bargain with them when there's a lot of pressure from fans to do what's necessary to keep the team in town. The billionaire doesn't need to worry about getting reelected. You still didn't even respond to the point that the city doesn't economically benefit from it. If they did why wouldn't the owners just fund it and collect all that theoretical money from parking spots? It's because that's an economic fallacy and they know that. They are smart and want the city to take on part of the economic risk for them as they know that there's very little profit year over year from running a team. The true profit is not from running the business of an nba team, no the profit is made when they sell the team. For example the Rockets owner paid $85 million in 93, and he's listed the team for $1.65 billion in 2017.
Uh, yes, i know the owner will make money from the sale. That's not true for nfl franchises though. Those teams can and do make money. The city would economically benefit from it if they assessed a tax for each ticket sale. Hey look! It's the internet. I can find an article that had investment guys that say what I say too! Some high level investment guys here! https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/rundown/public-money-used-build-sports-stadiums Give me a break dude. I'm not saying that it would be fool proof. Just theoretically, it should work. Establish a tax per ticket. The cities can do so for hotels and motels too. There have been studies that there isn't much change in hotel bookings for tourism if increased. You're absolutely right that is might not though. In theory it should! I'm not saying every plan works out. The 50 year was exaggeratted. 20 or 30 years is not unreasonable. Owners arent gonna start a team if they don't think they can make money on it. And they surely aren't going to invest in a place they don't think would succeed. If the city loses out, oh no! At least they can say they tried. The truth is people are going to bitch about the govt no matter if they are left or right.
Didn't mean to argue. Just thought I may have missed something because it sounded like the plan was for private financing and that's what you said you wanted.
Our mayor just resigned. http://komonews.com/news/local/seattle-times-mayor-murrays-cousin-accuses-him-of-sexual-abuse
