The new Saskatchewan CFL stadium being built has one surprising statistic – it actually seats fewer spectators than its predecessor by a few hundred seats.
Even though Regina is significantly smaller than other CFL cities, ranking only 18th in Canada, it is a notably conservative act. By the choice of design it is clear that the improvement over the old one is going be in terms of comfort, not capacity.
It reflects the current CFL philosophy: build for today, the short term, don’t bite off more than you can chew.
While that philosophy is sage and prudent, it just may be too cautionary and shows little faith in the league and its marketing abilities.
It is the same throughout the league. Ottawa, the fourth-largest city in Canada, building the smallest CFL stadium at just over 24,000. Hamilton ripping down its old stadium, after its owner spurned the chance of building a new enlarged stadium in a new location, and instead building a new stadium with reduced seating capacity on the same site. Toronto talking about leaving the Rogers Centre and moving into smaller BMO field.
Only in Winnipeg, which built a new stadium that expanded their seating capacity by a modest few thousand more seats, indicated that this was a time of growth, not consolidation. Winnipeg ought to have been the model for the other cities, but instead it is the exception to the rule.
This philosophy says something about the CFL: there isn’t much visionary leadership. The most visionary act in recent years was ex-Commissioner Mark Cohon playing CFL regular season games in small Moncton in the Touchdown Atlantic format. One wonders what will be the fate of that concept.
In Saskatchewan, there was reason to loosen the reins and take a chance of building a much larger stadium (say 40,000). Saskatchewan was prospering as never before. Saskatoon, where the team also markets, is one the fastest growing small cities in Canada.
Furthermore, when Regina hosted the Grey Cup in 2013, extra temporary seats were erected before the season started and for many regular season games, many if not all of them were sold. Regina obviously has the best marketing strategy in the CFL. So taking a chance on a new bigger stadium was not that much of a risk.
Certainly, there are grounds for being conservative. Ex-commissioner Tom Wright boldly promised to get the CFL its long-sought tenth Canadian franchise, only to have the opposite happen when Ottawa folded. There is also the bad image that the CFL has in southern Ontario and the precarious marketing efforts to French Canadians in Montreal.
But with stadiums and other sports facilities, one thing should be remembered: you are building for tomorrow as well as today. Governments and taxpayers do not want to spend money on sports facilities unless they have to, so when you build one, you had better get it right not only for the short term but the long term as well. Once a new sports facility is built it is expected to serve for decades, not just a few years.
No better example exists than the Skydome, a.k.a. the Rogers Centre. Before it was built, there was talk that not only would it be the home of the Blue Jays and Argonauts, but it would be used to get an NFL team and possibly the Olympic Games.
It was known that the NFL required a stadium of at least 60,000 seats. When the Skydome opened, there was a televised celebration and the TV host was babbling about the number of people inside, only to be told on air – to the host’s amazement – by a stadium official that the place only held 48,000.
Public officials knew that Toronto wanted an NFL team and had aspirations of getting the Olympics. Why choose a design that would get neither?
When building a sports facility, nobody wants to be told in a few years that it is inadequate or obsolete and has to be replaced or upgraded. Taxpayers do not like that costly news, especially after spending over $1 billion on the Olympic Stadium in Montreal and over $500 million on the SkyDome in Toronto.
There have been a many a sports team owner (mostly in the NFL) that have used the issue of a stadium to relocate his team.
So while the CFL is happy to get these new stadiums today, if the league grows and there are no places to put the fans, what will they say tomorrow?
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