Raise the Hammer

I guess I'm a little surprised that more pointed questions weren't asked in this article, namely:

1) if the Tiger-Cats believe the City should not have been surprised by the 11th hour public declaration of the unsuitability of the WH site, how should they have interpreted the Spec quote from the Caretaker that 'we can work with any site' (or something to that effect);

2) What does $15M for construction costs in the stadium precinct actually mean? How much for the stadium itself? (and a number of other questions about the Caretaker's proposal for the EM site)

3) What is the Caretaker's proposal to get the stadium from 15,000 seats to 25,000+ seats? By all accounts this will cost $50M (over and above all of the public money going into, but he has put no more than $15M on the table - where will the rest come from?

4) The Tiger-Cats have released results of their fan surveys. There are some profound sampling issues with these data. Is this the only data that the Tiger-Cats are using to make decisions? Apart from the sampling issues, these data tell us nothing about the people who are not currently customers of the team, but who might be? Shouldn't some emphasis be placed on their preferences, say from a poll of residents of the GHA? I find it hard to believe there aren't other data they are working from.

5) In terms of data interpretation, the Facilitator's report appears to have accepted the significance of the claim that 74% of current fans said they would drive to a hypothetical stadium at the West Harbourfront. But this is a seriously flawed question, it does not provide real alternatives. A balanced question would have asked what mode of transportation fans would use if they had the full range of choices that will exist in 2015: driving, GO Transit, others. And by 2017, it should be driving, LRT, GO Transit, others.

6) In the Tiger-Cats' claim that they would lose $7M in the first year, one of the assumptions was an avg ticket price of $30 in 2014 dollars. This is about $22 in current dollars - is this what the current avg ticket price is?

7) What impact will the new CBA have on team revenues? How much impact will this have on the viability of a WH site?

red24