The weak Canadian dollar is set to spell bad news for Canadian major league sports franchises if it doesn’t stop falling. As of Friday, the Canadian dollar valued at 72 cents American, the lowest it has been in a long time. This is bad news for a league like the NHL, which depends on getting a portion of it’s funding from that multi-billion dollar TV rights deal with Rogers. It’s also an issue for the Canadian owners who pay their players in American money, but this doesn’t just affect NHL teams. It also affects the other major league sports leagues that have teams in Canada; The NBA’s Toronto Raptors and Major League Baseball’s Toronto Blue Jays will potentially have issues with the low dollar as well.
Weak Canadian Dollar Could Hurt MTL Baseball
Thanks to the falling dollar, Quebec City has the potential to lose all the ground it has gained. The NHL could easily look at the current situation with the weak dollar and say they don’t want to add a new team in Canada just yet because of the risk of the low dollar having an early negative affect on a new franchise. It would be really embarrassing if a brand-new team had to move just a few years after its establishment. Its a tough idea to imagine, but we need to be realists about this: the dollar needs to stabilize and then rise up to be in favor of a new Quebec NHL franchise.
The falling dollar will also negatively impact the baseball movement to bring an MLB team back to Montreal. It’s pains me to even bring up this topic as an Expos fan and someone who really wants to bring a team back, but right now we have to be realistic about the economic times.
There had been some rumors going around Montreal that there were a few businesses and people interested in returning a team to Montreal. The problem with the weak dollar is that it could derail any interest in MLB’s return to the city. As everyone should know by now, the Olympic stadium is not viable for a long-term baseball residency. The potential stadium cost will range from $300 million to $500 million, depending on if there is a retractable roof added to the stadium plans, and that is already a lot of money to invest. Let’s also remember that the federal and provincial governments have both expressed a lack of enthusiasm when it comes to giving money to build stadiums.
Now, for the sake of argument, imagine if a team is bought and relocated, or MLB does some expansion, and the fees are $300 million American. That money alone would cost over $400 million Canadian. By that point, the team would cost almost one billion dollars. Some people have already projected a potential baseball team to cost that much, but the future players’ salaries would cost a lot more due to the exchange rate for the team. Many teams sport an average payroll over $100 million; that’s a lot of money to spend through the exchange.
Today’s MLB is much better when it comes to revenue and revenue sharing than it used to be and with things like the luxury tax, sponsorship, and big T.V. deals, the league has room to grow and help out teams that might struggle a bit when it comes to making money. However another problem, which Quebec City could potentially face with the NHL, is the fact that the MLB owners might not want to have to help a brand new team with it’s expenses right away.
Right now things don’t look so positive when it comes to bringing a new baseball team to Montreal, but never say never. The dollar could start to rise in a few years, and then maybe the potential owners would look past the issue and continue on with bringing a team back. Who knows what is going on behind closed doors; right now it seems bleak with a weak dollar, but that won’t last forever. All baseball fans in Quebec can do now is just wait it out and see what will happen. Let’s see what happens when the Blue Jays play the Boston Red Sox at the Big O in April.
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