Last week was a big week for my beloved Saskatchewan Roughriders. A government report regarding the Roughriders’ new stadium was released. This report gave us a couple of options. We also had another potential proposal appear (more on that later).
The feasibility study report can be found here: Feasibility Study
The government report indicated that there are two options for a stadium. A completed covered stadium that would cost $386 million, or a version with a retractable roof that would cost $431 million. If I had my choice, I would take the retractable roof version. Both would hold about 33,000 and be expandable to meet the Grey Cup minimum of 45,000 attendees.
It’s a very thorough report with lots of details including figures, diagrams and other things. It made me very excited to see something with this much detail.
However, discussion of this report was pushed aside when another potential solution appeared. An Ottawa architect had drawings of a new stadium for the Riders, including some details about the investors involved.
This project would be a little bigger than the original proposal. It would hold 55,000 seats, have a hotel and casino. It would be part of the Hard Rock brand that is currently owned by the Florida Seminoles tribe.
The cost of this little adventure? $1.2 BILLION!
This is where things got a bit strange. The initial reports suggested that the Seminole would join forces with a group of ten Saskatchewan Indian Bands. The Seminoles would put up $600 million towards the facility and then give a letter of credit to the Saskatchewan investors. Part of this money would be from the sale of two Saskatchewan casinos (one in Regina and the other in Moose Jaw) to the Seminoles. Purchase price would be $350 million; the reports suggested that the government would then take $200 million and use it for the construction of this new complex.
When media outlets contacted the Seminoles, the people there didn’t know anything about this deal! However, it turns out that the wrong people were being contacted and that there was a “Memorandum of Understanding” between the Seminoles and the Saskatchewan group (known as the Independent First Nations of Saskatchewan).
An MOU isn’t much of anything. Apparently there have been some MOUs for other Saskatchewan projects that didn’t come into being. The MOU requires that the Saskatchewan government sell the casinos, but the government has stated that they have no plans to sell the casinos. Why should they? They bring in a $50 - $75 million profit every year. Why sell them for a net of $150 million? Clearly, the casinos are being undervalued in this situation.
Also, the government may not be able to conveniently flip the $200 million dollars over to that stadium project anyway. Money from the sale would have to go into government’s general revenue fund (I’m not 100% sure on all of the details on this part).
While such a big stadium would be nice, would the Riders really need a stadium that size? My concern is that, even by covering seats, we would lose some of the intimacy of a smaller stadium. I’ve seen the Stadium at BC Place and SkyDome (ahem - Rogers Centre) with covered seats. It doesn’t look good.
All of the above is pretty interesting but, through all of this, we’ve now learned that apparently there are up to SIX other investors interested in the stadium project! This includes things like hotels or other type of commercial concepts. Hopefully we’ll hear more in the coming weeks.
Funny - a few weeks ago, the big discussion was whether we should have a new stadium in Saskatchewan. Most people were for it, but some were against it. Now, the question isn’t if a new stadium is going to be built, but how it’s going to built.
As my brother (whom I will crush in golf this year) said, “Whatever it takes” to get a new stadium built for the Riders. I agree as long as the Riders are respected in all of this. The Riders must not be hurt or put in a situation where the fans end up paying too much for tickets. I don’t care whether it’s a private investor or not; any stadium deal happens because of the Riders, so the Riders and their fans must get treated properly.
Jim Wolf is a member of the Clique Canada team and looks forward to enjoying a new stadium.
