How City Hall Makes the National Capital Region a Poor Sports Marketplace |
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| Written by Kendall R. Giberson |
| Monday, 08 June 2009 19:00 |
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The National Capital Region; population: 1.3 million. It has a strong economy based on government services and a world-renowned hi-tech sector. It is home to several universities and colleges and has long been ranked as one of the best places to live in Canada. From an outsider's point of view, the Ottawa-Gatineau area looks like an ideal market for high-level sports franchises. However, several professional sports franchises have made Ottawa their graveyard in recent years:
World Hockey Association Ottawa Nationals 1973 World Hockey Association Ottawa Civics 1976 Canadian Football League Ottawa Rough Riders 1996 National Lacrosse League Ottawa Rebel 2003 Canadian Football League Ottawa Renegades 2006 International League Ottawa Lynx 2007 Can-Am League Ottawa Rapidz 2008 Can-Am League Ottawa Voyageurs 2009
Professional football has come and gone twice, two professional baseball teams have packed up and moved out (and one never even made it onto the field!), pro lacrosse flopped horribly, and Ottawa almost lost its National Hockey League and Ontario Hockey League franchises. Now, we see the idea of professional football and professional soccer setting up in the area, as two different groups, Lansdowne Live! and Senators Sports & Entertainment, were recently awarded conditional Major League Soccer and Canadian Football League franchises on the basis that a modern outdoor stadium will serve as home for the team. So the two groups banged their respective drums at city hall and made proposals for why their ideas would work better than the other and why public funds should go into their stadium project. One wanted to revamp the existing Lansdowne park while the other wanted to build an entirely new stadium in Kanata. Bear in mind that there currently exist two outdoor stadiums in Ottawa without major tenants.
So, why do these groups continue to float the idea that Ottawa is a viable market for pro sports given its abysmal track record? Well, in order to answer that question, we must ask another question: why do high-level sports fail in the Ottawa market? The answer is simple: municipal politicians in Ottawa are bananas when it comes to facilitating sports franchises. They either create a situation that dooms ownership to fail, or fail to do due diligence when carpet-baggers come into town promising the world and delivering nothing. I would also argue that the existing franchises survive in spite of city hall's efforts to make things difficult for them. It is no coincidence that the two groups that bid for public funding for their franchise's new homes are also linked to the two successful hockey franchises, the Senators and the 67s.
1. Lansdowne Park/ Ottawa Civic Centre/ Frank Clair Stadium
How City Hall Screwed it up: Well, they haven’t totally buggered this one up yet, but they did themselves no favours in the short-term by holding a Lansdowne Park redevelopment competition which solicited bids that included condominiums and green space, and some did not include any provisions for an arena or stadium; and then scrapping the competition after just a few months.
Ideal Situation: The Lansdowne Live and Senators Sports & Entertainment join forces and design a multi-purpose stadium at Lansdowne that serves as a home for CFL and MLS teams while keeping the Civic Centre at the same site.
2. Jetform Park/Lynx Stadium/Rapidz Stadium/Ottawa Baseball Stadium
This park opened in 1993 as a state-of-the-art baseball facility to house the Ottawa Lynx and proceeded to set international League attendance records. Problems ensued in the early 2000s as the parent Montreal Expos died a slow death and the club was taken over by the Baltimore Orioles and the Philadelphia Phillies for the last year. When the Lynx left in 2007, the independent Can-Am league moved in with the arrival of the Rapidz, which posted respectable attendance figures but folded after one season after the owners ran into cost overruns and claimed that the city raised their lease on the stadium from $100,000 per year to $1 million. The league offered to operate the team as the Voyageurs for the 2009 season, until new ownership could be found, but decided against it after its Atlantic City franchise also folded. There was a proposal from businessman David Butler to build a retractable roof over the stadium and use it for concerts and other special events, and also accommodate a pro baseball team in the future.
How City Hall Screwed it up: The evidence suggests that city hall insisted that the inexperienced owners of the Rapidz pay a higher lease when they were still trying to find their footing after one year (see http://www.ottawarapidz.com/). This is enough to chase any interested prospective owners away. Now the stadium is just sitting and rotting while the city and the league (which paid the lease on the park for 2009) bicker over who is responsible for its upkeep.
Ideal Situation: The city sells the stadium to private interests who bring more events to the park and paves the way for another baseball team to set up shop long-term in Ottawa (The Toronto Blue Jays' agreement with AAA Las Vegas ends after the 2009 season, and Ottawa is close to the markets of the AA Eastern League). An additional idea would be the creation of a national baseball academy operating out of the stadium year-round.
3. Robert Guertin Centre
This arena has been a long-time events centre for the old city of Hull and remains very active in the winter as the Ontario Major Junior Hockey League's Olympiques are always near the league lead in attendance. In the mid 2000s, it was decided that a new arena was needed to replace the 50 year-old "Bob" and that this should include a bigger lobby, a more accessible concession area, more private boxes and accommodate 5,000 spectators. Also, the arena is sort of hard to find and parking is a nightmare (but free). There was an idea thrown about that a new arena should be built in the Gatineau sector. After years of deliberating, it was decided that the existing arena would be renovated by a developer who was awarded the contract without a competition. Renovations are scheduled to be complete by the start of the 2009-10 season.
How City Hall Screwed it up: This is a case of different mayors of Gatineau having different ideas. One wanted to build a new arena while one wanted to keep the existing one. The major problem is that the company doing the renovations was awarded the contract without a competition. On the other hand, the holding of a competition would also have held up renovations for yet another year.
Ideal Situation: Hindsight is 20/20, but why was a newer and larger arena not part of the plans when the Casino du Lac Leamy was built in 1996? Also, a new 5,000 seat arena could have been added to Les Promenades de l'Outaouais and boost customer traffic at the mall. Renovating the existing arena is really the third-best option.
4. The Palladium/Corel Centre/Scotiabank Place
How City Hall Screwed it up: By reputation alone. Ideal Situation: An arena would have been built in the LeBreton Flats area when it was completely undeveloped and people would have been able to park on both sides of the river. Events would have boosted businesses in both downtown Ottawa and Hull and added to the skyline. As it sits, the arena in Kanata does alright, but it is a very inconvenient commute for most residents of the National Capital Region. Imagine the potential a LeBreton Flats location would have had. Unfortunately, that area was owned by the National Capital Commission, which had other long-term plans for the land, such as a site for the Canadian War Museum.
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Comments (5)
Ottawa Stadium Group
Hi Kendall,
Re: Ottawa Stadium Group
The shame of it all is that the stadium is not really that old. I also work for the security company which patrols the facility on a nightly basis so I know the state of disrepair that it is starting to fall into without proper upkeep.
Great article.
Having built the hockey arena within the city would also have helped local businesses. In most cities, arenas and stadiums are surrounded by sports bars that fans pour into for post game reverie. Scotia Bank Place is surrounded by farm fields and traffic jams. Instead of celebrating a Sens win with friends over a pint, most fans are stuck sitting in cars fighting back road rage. Thank god for the after game show on the radio...
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As for the rebel in fact they did very well untill they moved to the civic centre.OTtawa is not a bad sports market at all the probleams is people loive to bash ottawa left and right.Now people fail to look at toronto how bad of a sports market it really is.People think ottawa has a bad track record is nothing compared to toronto. |
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