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Canadian Premier League T20 Cricket Stadium (?,?,?)

GTA cricket fans closer to domed stadium | Toronto Star

Cricket lovers are one step closer to having a stadium in the GTA and if one local league has its way, the facility will be landing in Toronto.

Canadian Premier League T20 chairman Roy Singh says his league has secured $700 million from Avcom Investments Inc. to construct the first purpose-built covered cricket facility with a natural grass surface and fixed roof.

Though Brampton, Milton and Markham are also being shopped around as potential stadium locations, Singh says Toronto is the first choice.

“Brampton is pushing us very hard (and) so is Markham, but if Toronto comes to the table with something we can look at and work with successfully, I will definitely choose Toronto,” Singh says.

He says Toronto has reciprocated the league’s interest in the stadium.

“They said to me they want the stadium in Toronto,” Singh says. “They’ve said this numerous times.”

While City of Toronto tourism manager Rob Berry was hesitant to speak about any city involvement in potential plans for a cricket stadium, he did say, “we are interested and hopeful that something can come to fruition, but we still have some things to get done.”

One of the biggest hurdles to clear is finding 150 acres of land for the stadium, and parking for 10,000 cars and between 100 and 200 buses.

A conceptual site plan drawn up by WSP Canada/Architecture 49 features 35,000 seats positioned under a dome-shaped roof tilted towards the sun.

Singh says he is currently courting more investors from Dubai and China, who have shown an interest in providing another $300 million the league will need to construct the estimated $1 billion stadium.

If all goes as planned, league president Bob Mitchell says there will be definite support from a municipality and a "stadium built and ready for international cricket within four to five years."

But some, like local developer John Cutruzzola, who previously sought to bring a multi-use cricket stadium to the GTA, have qualms about the project.

“It’s hard to make it work and that’s why a lot of these ideas don’t get realized,” he says.

“It’s welcome and needed, but I think the return that investors will need could make this a pie in the sky.”

Brampton Cricket League president Faraz Saleem also has concerns.

“Knowing cricket, I think this is going to be tough to put together,” he says. “It’s a big investment. It’s a big undertaking.”

Still, Saleem says he supports the idea of welcoming a cricket facility to the GTA because he says there is a “massive interest” in the sport.

“A few years ago, I started a midnight league and I kid you not, at 12 p.m. people could come to play games and stay there until about 6 a.m. and it was busy every weekend,” he says.

Though he would like to see the stadium close to home, he’s open to it being located elsewhere.

“Ideally, Brampton would be a great location because Brampton has the most facilities for cricket in the GTA,” he said.

“However, if facilities were in Toronto with better transit, it may be a better option.”

He also says Singh isn’t the first to pitch a cricket stadium idea in the GTA.

In June 2012, Brampton councillors shot down an idea to build a baseball venue for the 2015 Pan Am Games that could have been reconfigured for cricket afterward
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http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2014/07/11/gta_cricket_fans_closer_to_domed_stadium.html
 
I don't understand the economics of this. I really want to know how many seats per year such a stadium would have to sell to warrant a three-quarters of a billion investment. I just can't imagine there are enough cricket fans in the GTA who would buy enough tickets at sufficient price to justify such an endeavour financially. Until someone can make a credible business case, with hard numbers, I will be tremendously dubious of the project's viability.
 
How many people attended that shambles of an event/match at Rogers Centre 2 years ago?
 
ChesterCopperpot said:
How many people attended that shambles of an event/match at Rogers Centre 2 years ago?
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From a quick google search:

"Tickets ranged from $25 to $195 and there were plenty to be had. Most of the crowd was in the bleachers, with acres of empty space above the baseball dugouts. There was no one in the 200 or 500 levels."
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Tulse said:
I don't understand the economics of this. I really want to know how many seats per year such a stadium would have to sell to warrant a three-quarters of a billion investment. I just can't imagine there are enough cricket fans in the GTA who would buy enough tickets at sufficient price to justify such an endeavour financially. Until someone can make a credible business case, with hard numbers, I will be tremendously dubious of the project's viability.
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I would imagine that a large part of the revenues (maybe the majority?) would be from a Canadian Premier League broadcasting agreement, so they might make money even if hardly anybody buys tickets -- provided that the stadium cost is reasonable. The stadium design does seem like massive overkill to me, but I would think that Avcom Investments have carefully studied the financials before agreeing to give $700,000,000, so maybe it does make sense financially.
 
Mongo said:
I would imagine that a large part of the revenues (maybe the majority?) would be from a Canadian Premier League broadcasting agreement, so they might make money even if hardly anybody buys tickets -- provided that the stadium cost is reasonable. The stadium design does seem like massive overkill to me, but I would think that Avcom Investments have carefully studied the financials before agreeing to give $700,000,000, so maybe it does make sense financially.
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What the hell? There's no way. Even the recent Rogers NHL deal was only for $5.2 billion over 12 years. How is a brand new league in something that's not a mainstream sport in Canada going to bring in even 1/10th of that? I get that a lot of people in Canada are passionate about the sport, and in the GTA in particular, but it's nowhere close to mainstream nationally. It'd be significantly less popular than the CFL, and nobody in their right mind would build a $700M stadium for the CFL.

There have been LOTS of agreements to invest in sporting teams/venues that made no financial sense and never came to fruition, like the Markham arena or a number of proposals involving the Phoenix Coyotes. The fact that some company supposedly agreed to give $700M at this point in time does absolutely nothing to convince me this makes financial sense. There's some catch or fine print we don't know about.

The only way this could possibly happen is if they expected to bring an NFL team to it or it's part of a successful Olympic/World Cup bid.
 
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Too bad they can't combine it with an NFL field or soccer field. This could only be viable if they have several sports operations keeping it afloat.
 
Mongo said:
I would imagine that a large part of the revenues (maybe the majority?) would be from a Canadian Premier League broadcasting agreement, so they might make money even if hardly anybody buys tickets -- provided that the stadium cost is reasonable.
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But the stadium cost seems to be known...is $700 million reasonable? The first part of your post confuses me......if broadcasting is so lucrative that they make money if hardly anyone comes....why spend $700 million you don't have to building 35k seats that you don't need?
 
TOareaFan said:
But the stadium cost seems to be known...is $700 million reasonable? The first part of your post confuses me......if broadcasting is so lucrative that they make money if hardly anyone comes....why spend $700 million you don't have to building 35k seats that you don't need?
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Well of course they would hope that the seats are regularly filled, bringing in additional revenue. Speaking for myself, I would build a "bare-bones" open-air stadium (no dome) seating 10-15 thousand people, built with room for expansion to as many as 25-40 thousand people if attendance warrants it. I don't know how much this would cost, but it would surely be less than the billion dollars ($700 million from Avcom Investments and another $300 million from unspecified other investors) that the pictured design and the land it sits on would cost. Maybe one-tenth that amount, not counting land costs?

If it turns out that their attendance projections are correct, and hold up for more than a few years, then at that point, building a stadium to this design might be justified.
 
Maybe rogers could sell Rogers center to these cricket guys for cheap and they invest 200 mill to update to cricket spec and beatify and Rogers buy up any remaining available land around the waterfront to build a new baseball facility. The problem with Rogers centre for baseball is it was built at a time when domed stadiums were popular everywhere and it works with torontos climate but few years after skydome every teams new stadium were designed like old time baseball stadiums and domes or other sterile ballparks were not cool. I admit, roger centre isn't that beautiful but they definitely could do a lot more to update it. Getting that new real grass will greatly improve it for players and fans. They should also do something to the exterior concrete, it looks really grimy. Cover the exposed concrete in all brick, aluminium or something. The roof could do away with that white sheet metal and replaced with clear type of plexy or curved glass tinted to jays blue so it lets in light but not the weather, with automatic blinds for when the stadium is used for concerts or other. At least roger centre has a good design it just needs some major updating.
 
utwatch said:
Maybe rogers could sell Rogers center to these cricket guys for cheap and they invest 200 mill to update to cricket spec and beatify and Rogers buy up any remaining available land around the waterfront to build a new baseball facility. The problem with Rogers centre for baseball is it was built at a time when domed stadiums were popular everywhere and it works with torontos climate but few years after skydome every teams new stadium were designed like old time baseball stadiums and domes or other sterile ballparks were not cool. I admit, roger centre isn't that beautiful but they definitely could do a lot more to update it. Getting that new real grass will greatly improve it for players and fans. They should also do something to the exterior concrete, it looks really grimy. Cover the exposed concrete in all brick, aluminium or something. The roof could do away with that white sheet metal and replaced with clear type of plexy or curved glass tinted to jays blue so it lets in light but not the weather, with automatic blinds for when the stadium is used for concerts or other. At least roger centre has a good design it just needs some major updating.
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Actually if you pulled the lower bowl seats out of the Rogers Centre it would make a great Cricket facility - if you added grass of course.
 
themarc said:
The ICC knows that Toronto would be a Cricket mecca for the western hemisphere. 35k seats would be a conservative start. The IPL would outdraw the NFL in Toronto. Guaranteed.
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I'll be the first to admit I know very little about cricket. But how many IPL matches will they have here, we don't live in India, the Kolkata Knight Riders (great name by the way) are not going to be playing games consistently here. The Sunrisers Hyderabad (another cool name, thanks wikipedia) might play an exhibition match but is it enough to have a full cricket stadium of 35K year round.

I like soccer and a Barcelona vs Real Madrid match or a Man U vs Chelsea match might get 50K but would be bad business to build a stadium of that size that could have capacity once or twice a year. But even friendly matches with top European teams will get old kind of quick.

If you look at something like Bmo you take into account that TFC might play a minimum of 20 home games. Then you include a couple of men national games, and a couple of women national games and then a couple of exhibition matches with oversea teams and now you have at least 25 or so home dates a year. If TFC makes it far in playoffs/concacaf league it can go up to 30 home games.

How many games will be played in this 35K seat stadium a year. There doesn't seem to be much of a domestic league in north america. I guess the cricket national team can play there, but how many games do they play a year? You include a couple of exhibition matches with oversea teams do we even reach double digit number of paid events there.
 
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