Comment 57919

By drb (registered) - website | Posted January 25, 2011 at 02:49:22

It is obvious that $ figures were hard to pin down. Councillors were frustrated by the lack of clear financial figures, as I am sure staff were handcuffed as well.(except for Rossini, who claims to have seen the Cats financial records) Both construction costs and the TiCats mystery operating costs were veiled in assumptions and secrecy. Rossini answered a councillor's question (I can't remember which councillor) saying that with the current IW deal the Cats could remain solvent. This got me thinking about revenues. We don't know the terms or value of the new sponsorships. We don't know how much luxury boxes will bring in. We don't know what a soccer team can generate. We only have guarantees on the minimums for a surcharge on tickets- $600,000/year.

Naming rights are a sliding percentage based on market values ($500,000 was bandied about as a base amount), again an assumption. Parking based on 1500 spots x 10 games/season x $20/spot= $30,000/season.(my calculation, could be more) And the city is still on the hook for yearly maintenance costs, with no capital investment for the inevitable replacement of the stadium.

The only numbers I could find on my own are the CFL salary cap (for 2010-$4.25 million) and the CFL salary floor (for 2010-$3.9 million). BYs stated losses over the last 7 years are $30 million. That averages out to $4.28 million in losses per year. I understand that BY invested in a scoreboard and other IW upgrades, but his losses show that the Cats can't meet player payroll in an average year without taking on debt.

Can anyone help me in making sense of these numbers? Am I mad, or does this look like we are going to be on the hook for losses for years to come, even if upper levels of government bail us out of our current capital funding short fall?

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