02-04-2015, 12:13 PM
Well said, schooner77: in no sense of the word is it rational to spend resources constructing a 24,000 seat hockey arena to attract an NHL team that may or may not be successful, while our much smaller venues are under-utilized as it is.
I have to say that I consider Hamilton and Waterloo both to be unlikely contenders. There are many big metros in the States that would be ahead of line, to say nothing of the protests that MLSE would make.
I really do think corporate money is critical to major-league sports team success, to guarantee that a certain number of box seats and tickets will be sold at inflated prices no matter how well the team is doing. Locations like Toronto have a well of this type of money from which to draw. So do other American cities which are headquarters to big companies that you don't always think of. Someone compared the western GTA to Winnipeg, and obviously the former is richer on the whole, but Winnipeg does have actual corporate headquarters in a variety of industries: Monsanto Canada, Buhler, New Flyer, Boeing Canada, and a few massive insurers who are actually headquartered there (not like SunLife, whose President and CEO of course go to work in Toronto). Hamilton is more of a "branch plant" economy, and besides the steel mills and the accompanying steel processors, I can't really think of any companies headquartered there.
I have to say that I consider Hamilton and Waterloo both to be unlikely contenders. There are many big metros in the States that would be ahead of line, to say nothing of the protests that MLSE would make.
I really do think corporate money is critical to major-league sports team success, to guarantee that a certain number of box seats and tickets will be sold at inflated prices no matter how well the team is doing. Locations like Toronto have a well of this type of money from which to draw. So do other American cities which are headquarters to big companies that you don't always think of. Someone compared the western GTA to Winnipeg, and obviously the former is richer on the whole, but Winnipeg does have actual corporate headquarters in a variety of industries: Monsanto Canada, Buhler, New Flyer, Boeing Canada, and a few massive insurers who are actually headquartered there (not like SunLife, whose President and CEO of course go to work in Toronto). Hamilton is more of a "branch plant" economy, and besides the steel mills and the accompanying steel processors, I can't really think of any companies headquartered there.