The March of the Domes Moves North

I borrow the title of this weeks entry from sports author Dave Zirins newest book "Welcome to the Terrordome". If you've never heard of him, pick up that book and his first publication "What's My Name Fool?", they're well worth the read. "Terrordome" opens with a chapter about sports teams getting the city and state to pay for sports stadiums that cost hundreds of millions of dollars(most notably the Superdome in New Orleans that cost the public 500 million that could have gone to schools, clinics or perhaps levees) and how billionaire owners continue to use the publics money to get free accommodations while gouging their fans with high ticket and concession prices. Sadly, this practice is now heading north.

This week the city of Montreal, Quebec approved its share in the financing of a 30 million dollar expansion of McGill University's Percival Molson Stadium, home the the CFLs Montreal Alouetes. Team President Larry Smith announced Wednesday that he would also begin requesting funding approval from both the Province of Quebec and the federal government. All this to add, drum roll please, 5000 seats to the stadium. Say what now?

Since when does it cost thirty million dollars to add 5000 seats? Unless these chairs are Laz-E Boy recliners with a built in beer fridge I don't see how the numbers work out. OK, that's a lie, I do see how the numbers work out, problem is it isn't in the way team owner Robert Wetenhall says. No, this deal smacks of a long standing tradition in Montreal and it's amazing the public isn't outraged.

Thirty years ago the fair city of Montreal bore witness to one of the greatest swindles ever. I speak of course of Olympic Stadium, the Big O which to this day still stands(barely) as a monument to spending excess, corporate graft, political kick-backs and bureaucratic corruption. Three decades after it's last piece of shoddy concrete was put in place the residents of Montreal are still paying for that collapsing eye-sore, a 1 billion dollar piece of ruble that will likely never see it's century mark. Now of course Percival Molson Park will not be another Big O, but this whole deal stinks of the same problems that turned Olympic Stadium from a crown jewel to a toilet bowl floater.

Does it really take 30 million to install 5000 seats? Hell no, let's look at this seriously. Some money will obviously go to installing more seating, but let's get real. Most of that money is going towards luxury boxes, plain and simple. Big, fancy seating for Quebec politicians, Quebec Hydro executives, local and provincial money men and of course, the local politicians who approved the spending of tax payers money so Wetenhall can pocket an estimated 2.5 million in extra revenues annually, on top of any cash that may(and very well will) go "missing" during the upgrades. Wetenhall insists this in necessary to keep the team in Montreal past 2010. Gee, where have we heard this before?

Look, the stadium is the smallest in the CFL and does need a face lift. More seats would mean more fans and better revenues, but this much? That the Alouettes would dare petition both the Province and the Federal government for additional cash speaks to how far owners have gone past the line of decency. That money is not theirs, and it never should be. If a team builds a new stadium and wants a break on property taxes, that's one thing, but no franchise has the right to take money out of the publics pockets so the owners don't have to spend any of their own dime.

The city of Montreal made a grave error in giving in to Wetenhall, the Province of Quebec and Prime Minister Stephen Harper must correct it by refusing any funding for the team. The CFL is a small league unique to Canada, but it has no more right to ask for local and federal money then the NFL or MLB. Canadians often pride themselves in saying "We're not Americans", and we'd damn well better remember that before we start closing libraries and cutting services to accommodate a football team.