No way a second 20,000 ish seat arena gets built in the GTA without an NHL team attached to it.

And that will probably never happen unless leadership changes in the NHL
 
A second southern Ontario NHL team might well come into existence at some point. It's up to Hamilton to make sure that it lands here if it does happen.

I know nothing about the economics of all of this, but I wonder if a concert-first venue can be a bigger moneymaker than an NHL team. I think average NHL revenues per game are something like $2.5 million USD. The Paul McCartney concert will probably gross something like $7 million Canadian or more (just a guess). That said, not every concert will be a Paul McCartney.
 
half the comments in this thread is about the NHL and the leafs blocking and management etc (including this one, the irony). the NHL isn't expanding to Southern Ontario or even to Canada. The NHL is focused on growing the sport in the US which is the cash cow. The league has traditionally been strong here and not so strong in the US so i get why people think they should place teams here but but recently they have great growth in revenue, viewership, and attendance in the US. It doesn't matter about the stadium, the support, or even a good ownership bid as it does nothing to grow the sport in the US. This being a venue with a focus on music is a much better solution and much less of a gamble. It's already looking good with Paul McCartney, The Junos, etc.
 
innsertnamehere said:
Recall the effort to build an arena in Markham about a decade ago.. if the money was out there to build a second arena privately from scratch in the GTA, it would have materialized.

The reason this works is that OVG got an existing arena for free as well as a bunch of development land they can sell off to help finance it. Building an arena from scratch means that you are spending closer to $800 million instead of $300 million, and you are looking at needing to buy land, instead of having land you can sell to pad your margins.
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I think that the GTA Centre not being built had less to do with not finding financial backing and more to do with the lack of an NHL tenant. News reports at the time suggested that the NHL was to expand by 4 teams (Vegas, Seattle, Quebec, and Toronto) but I believe that was most likely 4 ownership groups competing over 2 slots, and we all know what ultimately ended up happening.

I think the landscape for arena economics in Canada is a bit different now than 10 years ago, given that concerts have become such big revenue generators, in addition to the fact that non-Big 4 arena leagues like the NLL, PWHL, AHL, CEBL, (soon to be WNBA as well), etc have grown to enjoy reasonably good attendance, filling clear voids in our pro sports market across the country, and the existing facilities landscape cannot handle all of these teams trying to use the main arenas. OVG obviously has taken the easiest path with renovating TD Coliseum because it was available and severely underutilized, but what happens in the future? When TDC’s schedule fills up with concerts and is hosting NLL/AHL (and maybe even CEBL) games, there may even be demand for another large arena in the GTA/905.

I think over the next 10 years we are probably going to see more large-ish arenas being proposed/built in the GTA/905. Not NHL size, but probably just below that in the 10,000-15,000 seat range. Vaughan is probably going to want one in VMC, and Mississauga is probably going to try and replace Paramount Fine Foods Centre with one in MCC.
 
KingJames said:
Interesting take, if TDC is a hit, then it may indeed encourage others to come forward and build a competing venue in Toronto proper. But given the ACC/SA has been operating for 20 years with Raptors /Leafs, you would have thought that would have happened already for music /other traffic. If OVG can bridge the transportation gap to Harbour West on event days, and highlight that it does that, it should do well to pull in Toronto mass transit oriented population. We still sadly have oodles of surface parking for all those who want to drive.
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Don't forget that Live Nation plans a new 15,000 amphitheater at Ontario Place that will have the ability to operate year round. That will be a bit of a game changer.
 
innsertnamehere said:
Recall the effort to build an arena in Markham about a decade ago.. if the money was out there to build a second arena privately from scratch in the GTA, it would have materialized.

The reason this works is that OVG got an existing arena for free as well as a bunch of development land they can sell off to help finance it. Building an arena from scratch means that you are spending closer to $800 million instead of $300 million, and you are looking at needing to buy land, instead of having land you can sell to pad your margins.
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I agree.

OVG may be pumping a lot of money into this, but they'll get a lot from it as well, even if they need to wait a bit for the development market to trend in the right direction which it eventually will.
 
Civdis said:
Don't forget that Live Nation plans a new 15,000 amphitheater at Ontario Place that will have the ability to operate year round. That will be a bit of a game changer.
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I think it is supposed to have a capacity of 20,000 in outdoor mode and about 9000 when used as an indoor facility.
 
With the 'temporary' stadium in Downsview, and the supposed plan to rebuild Budweiser Stage into a year-round venue, Live Nation will almost certainly be building something in Toronto in the next few years, even if it doesn't eventually turn out to be in one of those exact locations.
Unlike the Markham and OverActive Media proposals, they have the money to actually build something (as opposed to just computer images that some high-school-aged kid could have made, and seem to inexplicably cause some otherwise reasonble adults to somehow assume this makes the proposal legitimate and realistic).
 
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ScreamingViking said:
There's also Rogers Stadium. It may be "temporary" but a permanent fixture for concerts could change the game. It's not about hockey.
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Hamilton has looked at an amphitheater at various points. Hopefully we can get the permanent version of Rogers Stadium here.

I'm sick of having to go to Toronto for everything.
 
BCTed said:
A second southern Ontario NHL team might well come into existence at some point. It's up to Hamilton to make sure that it lands here if it does happen.

I know nothing about the economics of all of this, but I wonder if a concert-first venue can be a bigger moneymaker than an NHL team. I think average NHL revenues per game are something like $2.5 million USD. The Paul McCartney concert will probably gross something like $7 million Canadian or more (just a guess). That said, not every concert will be a Paul McCartney.
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At this point, I'd like to see a competing league like the WHA used to be. Our best chance at pro hockey.

If a new league could figure out a way to operate without a salary cap, they could poach NHL talent thus becoming the top hockey league.

The NHL would be regulated to minor league, or better yet, go bankrupt. Hamilton could then deny Toronto a team due to "territorial" rights.

What sweet irony it would be!
 
PXL_20250727_183559176.MP.jpg
 
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