Raise the Hammer

Intriguing idea. Couple of things do not make sense.

Has the author or the speaker at Mac ever heard of musicians jamming and creating music by sending music tracks back and forth? I am no musician but I have never heard of it. I have heard of big time bands replaying or at least overdubbing certain tracks to get the exact sound that they wanted. Maybe I am wrong and musicians spend there days playing tracks and sending them to each other and creating great music that way. Love to hear from any that really do that.

The examples used Los Angeles and San Diego, neither one had a stadium built near existing shopping or attractions. In fact the exact opposite. The stadiums (stadia?) were in fact built in areas that had nothing there to attract people or even in an area that had elements to scare people off. What they did have was the possibility for future growth. How valuable can real estate in a crime riddled area be? If we build a stadium downtown is the surrounding real estate cheap enough to warrant being bought and converted? Will there be that demand from a football stadium where there are only 9 (11 if the team does really well into and through the playoffs) meaningful home games a year? Compare that to San Diego's Padre's 81 games a year or the Laker's 41 games. TiCats have 9 games and average around 20,000 per game. The Lakers sell out all 19,000 seats to every game. They also have a lot more dates potentially available in the playoffs. Best of 7 series for every round of the playoffs, with a potential of 4 series, a maximum of 16 more games. The Padre's average has declined to 25,000 but that is for 81 games. Big difference to the Tiger Cats 9 (max 11) games annually. Even if their attendance jumps to 26,000 or 28,000 per game can that really trigger that kind of Marshall space? I doubt it but I really do not know.

In comparison to the big sports in the U.S.A. the CFL is a minor league operation. Any comparison needs to be taken with a big spoon of salt.

If we build a new Stadium with taxpayer dollars it still needs to be a functional usable space in years to come, for both parties. I can live with tax dollars being spent in a scenario like that. If the city and Tiger Cats can not come to terms on a site that works for both then let's not build the new stadium, or at least not that size. If we are not going to build something relatively large do we need to build anything at all? McMaster U. just built a new stadium that holds (I believe) just under 10,000. That is big enough for things like high school championships and other civic needs. To bad the City did not get involved when that was being planned/built.

If the Tiger Cats can not live with the West Harbour site (I think it is a terrible site for pro football) and the City honestly cannot live with another site then we need to walk away from the deal. I would prefer that another mutually agreeable site were found but if it cannot then we need to move on.