Further: I am more and more coming to the conclusion that David Braley may build his own stadium. This guy seems to cultivate the image of some unsophisticated, hard nosed guy who made his millions through auto parts, gives some away, end of story. The more research I've been doing on this guy the more impressive he becomes. He is friggin' loaded (more than may be commonly known). Apparently aside from the auto parts and construction companies he is one of the largest commercial land developers in Ontario. He's given away multiple millions at a time to various concerns including a 50 million gift to McMaster's medical school. There is a quote that his net worth awes other CFL owners. Before any CFL haters out there scoff: Bob Young (Hamilton) is worth at least over 250 million, Roger Greenberg & family (Ottawa) is worth 1.1 billion, Bob Wetenhall (Montreal) was a former part owner of the New England Patriots and a co owner of an NASL team in the 70s. Braley has stated he's turned the BC Lions around and is making money there. Another point that may not be well known is that Braley has sat on various boards and committees with a broad range of entertainment options and facilities. He knows where every cent is spent. I get the feeling this guy knows or knows people who know how to mount a successful show. And that's the crux of my point. It's looking like he doesn't want to sell the Argos and we know MLSE doesn't want another stadium around to compete for any other entertainment dollars. Braley has the money, the construction and development experience, the entertainment know how and the political connections to get it done. He loves Canada and the CFL and I'm beginning to wonder if this will be his last hurrah before he steps down and sells the much more appealing Argos (in their own stadium) to someone he trusts will do right by them when he's gone.
If you look at the venues that are planned for Qatar in 2022 half of them are not even built yet so compared to Qatar Canada is in great shape. Most of the venues planned for Qatar are in the 40K range capacity with the exception of the 80K planned main venue. The big thing will be for Canada to be able to configure a venue to get to between 70K and 80K. Could be a good reason for all of Canada govt to get Olympic in Montreal redone correctly configuring the seating for Gridiron football and Soccer. Wishful thinking probably but the WC = BIG BIG BUCKS for a country. Or they could think smaller and host the Gold Cup which now draws some pretty massive crowds and supporters from Concacaf Countries
That is exactly what it looks like is happening using his resources and connections redeveloping an Area in York, Durham, or Peel Regions. Need to remember that Braley has only officially owned the Argos since 2010 so who knows what he will be capable of getting accomplished within the next 5 years.
Very little doubt that it would cost less money to build a new stadium from scratch that to retrofit the Big Owe. I think that they should be chasing after the Gold Cup in parallel with the WC bid. It would provide a better argument for spending the money to build stadiums.
` Canada really does have to figure something out with Olympic in Montreal. For the longest time it has been said that tearing it down would cost too much. Cannot expect to get a major event like a WC without having a venue in one of the three biggest metro's in Canada Montreal, Vancouver, and Toronto
I think pursuing the Gold Cup would be an excellent idea. Along with the WWC it would give us further experience hosting a major, multi-city soccer tournament. We could host it quickly, probably even for the 2015 edition if we pushed it. It would also not require any particular infrastructure changes. As for those saying we can't do a WC "on the cheap" but would have to build new stadia, I ask why? Both why would temporarily expanded CFL stadia be a problem and why would Canada want to build a bunch of 50 000 SSS that would sit empty following the WC? Another way of characterizing the lower budget approach is "prudent".
Yup, sooner or later somebody is gonna pull an Athens (Olympics) and blow the budget (turning off all prospective future bidders) and FIFA will be looking for someone to bid for an event. Happened before will happen again.
But it ain't likely to happen in North America. Both of the other potential bidders from CONCACAF have the ability to host in large stadiums, generating huge revenue for FIFA without much trouble/work at all. It is not whether or not a "cheap/budget" WC can be done but when the voters look at our bid of patched together CFL stadiums and new temporarily large enough to meet the minimums stadiums then compare it to a USA, for example, bid that has every stadium ready to go, unencumbered by other summer tenants and each as large as our largest stadium....our bid is not gonna look so good.
Agreed. The WC is the biggest show on Earth. Period. If you're going to host it, you've got to be World Class all the way. Size of the stadium is just the beginning.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/24701131 This would, I imagine, mean even more stadiums were necessary.
Further evidence of the bogus fan created CSA World Cup proposal Design was for CFL team ... but not the Stamps Scott Mitchell, Calgary Sun March 26, 2014 It was meant for a possible Saskatoon CFL team
I mean you just summed up the Qatar 2022 presentation. Show a bunch of slick artists drawings of stadiums that aren't even in the planning stages yet. I mean you could show a picture of a barn with the headline in bold enormous font letters "Sudbury World Cup Stadium". Throw out a couple expensive sounding, but technologically impossible concepts like floating clouds or draining Lake Ontario so you can use the reclaimed land to build luxury resorts and an roofless air conditioned stadium that will then be disassembled into tiny pieces and reassembled in Inuit fishing villages in Nunavut. Throw in a several truckloads of bribe money and you have yourselves a World Cup.
The point is, this particular series of images was not created by the CSA. it was done by a very talented amateur trying to shake things up. And in that respect they succeeded. There has been a huge amount of discussion around those images, and a lot of soccer people who were not paying attention these past 2 years are now aware of the idea and will not roll their eyes the next time some real news comes out. It does not take insider knowledge to put that together, the only info there that I was not aware of was some of the numbers, but if I had to guess to I would have probably come up with something similar. It's all stuff that has been officially reported or wide speculated. If you just take the 2015 WWC bid and logically scale it up, this is obviously what you get. Calgary is almost certainly going at act on Mcmahon is some way in the next decade, either a significant renovation or a totally rebuild. Given their booming economy and corporate support I imagine whatever they do will not be bare bones. Halifax, as well as Quebec City, have had preliminary discussions for years now and QC has to College support to take advantage of such a stadium even without the CFL. Montreal is in a period of increased discussion over the big O with the impact game and the Jays/Mets exhibition, and the mayor and sports authority are both making the usual noises about the roof and upgrades. Something is gonna give soon enough. The only thing in those slides that is actually BS is the 80,000 seat "fake farmers field" in Toronto. But speaking seriously, is such a construct necessary? Can a bid succeed with only a 40,000 seat stadium in its biggest city? Or is some sort of new stadium really necessary? Hypothetically, if 10 years from now TFC are sellout out 30,000 or 40,000 every game, would a new stadium actually make sense? Perhaps not a 80k, but a 40k expandable to 60k or something. It's an interesting question, and certainly something to ponder in the next few years. Remember that this bid as not actually due until 2019. We have a lot of time to figure all this out.
An 80000 seat stadium for the final has been a FIFA requirement. It doesn't have to be a new NFL venue in Toronto, but it has to be somewhere in the bid package.
Montreal's Olympic stadium sat just over 70,000 for the 1976 games, so the 75,000 figure in the bogus presentation sounds very reasonable. Ditto Edmonton, though I can't imagine it would actually be chosen. With the Japan 2002 final being in a 72,000 seater, the Germany final in a 74,000 seater and the Brazil final in a 77,000 seater, I don't believe there is a hard 80k cap. So it's possible that will be enough. Either way, the CSA will have been told what the expectations are, and they'll be figuring this out with that in mind.
Canada's main problem is that our major sport is an arena sport rather than a stadium sport. Any event that requires arenas and we can host it with very little effort, but when it comes to large stadiums we're really in a bind. If we're going to host the WC, a business case will have to be made to justify the costs. There's a lot of revenue to be had from the WC itself, but that won't cover it all. What use will all those additional seats be after it's over? We can't make that much of it temporary.
Canada has or will be proven to be a great country to host the Womens World Cup. The current set up could also possibily host the CONCACAF Gold Cup. So far only the US has been able to host that event with Mexico as a co host once or twice. If I recall a 20K venenue can also be used for Gold cup Matches. So that would include a Natural grass surface veneue in Moncton and Saputo in Montreal. A 40K BMO would sufice for a mediam event. Natural Grass at Rogers Centre as well. Several new World class training facitities will also be in place. Most likley would require temporary grass for Commonwealth and BC Place and/or Olympic. The Gold cup has Nations that will draw big like Mexico, US, host Canada, and some of the Central American countries also travel well
Building a bunch of stadiums in places like Halifax and Saskatoon to host a one-off event is a waste of money. I think you're going to see a lot of opposition (and rightfully so) if anyone proposes using tax dollars for such stadiums. Canada isn't Qatar or Russia- the public is going to give a lot of pushback on any World Cup plan that involves the construction of white elephant stadiums involving taxpayer money.
And...unlike things like the Olympics and PanAms and Commonwealth games a WC cannot hide behind the amateur athletes to draw funding. The federal government has a standing policy of not contributing to sports facilities for professional sports. Whether it is a WC or some perceived CFL after use, these facilities would all be for professional sports.
Halifax has ridded itself of some of the political people who were against the Halifax Stadium as a one stadium for all concept which would include more than CFL use but also University Sports and CIS Championships etc. in the city again. Saint Mary's stadium is in a shbles and has no outlook at all for funding a stdium just for them on campus and Dal and other nearby Univesities in Nova Scotia would all be able to rally around this stadium as a central location for AUS champinsip activities. Saskatoon now that is a bigger pipe dream than an NFL stadium in Toronto
Why even bring up Saskatoon? there's no suggestion that its even in the picture. 2007 money for BMO field and Panam money for Hamilton has proven that the federal promise to not fund professional facilities is very thin. As long as the facility is initially or partly used for amateur sport, the money is coming right in. So I would fully expect a Halifax stadium, as well as a QC one, to get some amount of Federal help. Overall we don't have *That* much new construction. The last one with so little would probably be Germany. Almost every facility is built or already planned, and thanks to the width of CFL fields are already destined for long term use.
Don't get me wrong, I believe 100% that we can (and should) host the Gold Cup with ease. The only reason we haven't done so is because the USSF has enough influence in CONCACAF to hold on to it for themselves.
IMO that is one of the reasons the tournament lacks credibitily....I always think of it as the USSF Interantional Invitational.
Is a bidding process, USSF bids the most money and Concacaf is happy to take the money. But any other country is free to outbid the USSF for the rights to hold the tournament.