Raise the Hammer

"The management agreement between the city and Global Spectrum/Live Nation states the city cannot support any entertainment venue larger than 3,000 seats."

Presumably other than the 19,000-seat venue covered by the management agreement. Another argument against the idea of the Pan Am Stadium's viability as a concert venue. As GS/LN suggests, there just isn't that much disposable income in this market. (One of the inherent trade-offs of life in a "small town big city," perhaps.)


…when the numbers for Metro Vancouver's overall economic performance for the lost half of the Vancouver Canucks hockey season are eventually tallied, an honest analysis is likely to conclude the lockout's impact was either negligible, non-existent or - most likely of all - slightly positive.

Because that's what thorough analyses have shown to be the case time after time - professional sports franchises tend not to boost a local or regional economy, but rather to drag it down a bit.

Brad Humphreys of the University of Alberta in Edmonton was a pioneer in this kind of research, as co-author of a widely cited study in 2000 that looked at U.S. cities hit by work stoppages in pro sports. The findings, he tells me, hold true on both sides of the border.

Even though the study is a few years old, "I don't think we'd find anything different now," he said. "I don't see anything in today's economy that would change it."

The study looked at employment earnings for employees in four different types of occupations, and found their collective earnings rose slightly when their cities' professional sports teams were idle. Other researchers have since looked at other indicators - for example, changes in the sale of taxable goods or the occupancy rate in hotels during work stoppages - and they've reached similar conclusions.

The reason is, when you think about it, pretty obvious. When people can't spend their money on pricey sports tickets, they spend it on other stuff instead.

http://www.vancouversun.com/business/lockout+good+Vancouver+economy/7794246/story.html