Cougars and CN Centre Sign a Deal

Tuesday, November 08, 2005 05:40 PM

The Prince George Cougars have inked a deal with the City and CN Centre for the next three years with a further two year option.

In return for the use of CN Centre the City will receive 12.5% of gross ticket sales up to $1,500,000 dollars and 15% thereafter. The new lease will also provide an opportunity for both parties to renegotiate the agreement based on gross ticket sales.

Tom Madden, Director of Leisure Services says "The Cougars are a cornerstone of the CN Centre" and he looks forward to working with them in the coming years.

Cougars Business Manager, Brandy Brodsky, says she is happy they were able to come to an agreement. "We are very excited how the team is doing this season."
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Posted on Tuesday, November 08, 2005 05:40 PM in Sports by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: spanky on November 8 2005 7:15 PM

can we officially call it rick brodsky's penthouse or the kitty litter box or what?

Posted by: Palopu on November 9 2005 5:44 PM

Tom Madden says the Cougars are the Cornerstone of the CN Centre. In actual fact the Cougars are the only reason the Centre was built. It is not very good for other venues.

Lets play the numbers game again. The average price for a Cougers ticket is $12.00. If you could average 3000 fans per game, at 36 home games the gross income from ticket sales would be $1,296,000.00 the Citys portion at 12.5% would be $162,000.00. If you averaged 3500 fans per game (Highly unlikely) gross income would be $1,512,000.00 the Citys portion would be $189,000.00.

The citys portion would pay for about 3 employees salaries, including benefits etc;, Which means that the other venues would have to make up the difference. We know that will not happen, and that is why this facility costs taxpayers approx. $300,000.00 per year to operate.

Of course the City may be able to increase their portion of the revenue when they begin to sell liquor, however that remains to be seen.

If you tried to increase the rates of the tickets to cover the actual cost of having the Cougers play in Prince George,(User Pays) the attendence would drop and you would be in a worse situation than you are now.

If the Cougars do not perform at the highest level consistantly then fans will be turned away and revenues will drop. Cost to the taxpayers will rise.

This was not a very will thought out venture.

Lets keep in mind that when we have 3000 fans at a hockey game in Prince George, we have 72000 people who are doing something else.

The constant implication that Prince George is a Hockey town does not stand up under close scrutiny.

The Mayor and other city personel can put a brave face on the situation, and pretend that everything is great, but deep down inside they have to know that the Multiplex idea was a bust.

Can anyone tell me what we will do with it if the Cougers leave town??

Posted by: spanky on November 9 2005 6:33 PM

the cats are not going anywhere. find me a publicly owned building that makes money in a town under 100 000 people. dream on dude.

later

Posted by: Palopu on November 9 2005 8:15 PM

What we are talking about here is a Private Enterprise operating in a public building. This is a far cry from the swimming pools, skating rinks, libraries, art centre, civic centre, etc. These are public building that do not have Private Enterprise using them. Dont get confused, we have no obligation as taxpayers to support a business that costs us money.