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A
scathing report released in the Ottawa Citizen's Lee Greenberg late Wednesday night is probably the last thing a proud Ottawa Senators fan base wanted to read.
The Ontario province - through the liberal minority - has been looking to scrap tax exemptions for businesses who write off sports tickets, much to the disbelief of President Cyril Leeder, who remains adamant that the organization will go under without this assistance.
Is Cyril Leeder simply posturing here, or will a proposed removal of the tax exemption -
if put into play - put such a huge dent in the Ottawa Senators bottom line that they're forced to move operations?
Am I scaring you if I suggest it's a little bit of both? Ah, political grandstanding at its finest.
As Cyril Leeder stated through the media, the proposed rule is poorly thought out, and only favors the bigger-market teams located in big-city Toronto. Leeder noted that the Maple Leafs, Raptors, and Blue Jays are effectively big business, and don't fight the uphill battle that a team from Ottawa endured annually.
Again, per the Ottawa Citizen:
“We need that to survive,” Leeder said in a telephone interview. “We cannot have another whack to our ability to operate here. You could take away incentives in bigger cities in sports and those teams would find a way to make it work, but the ones that are not in the major markets won’t survive.”
As it stands right now, businesses in the Ontario province can write off nearly half of all the tickets incurred via luxury suites for all of the events held in an arena, which include sporting events, concerts, and the like. Plenty of other additional entertainment costs can be written off, too.
The tax deductions for the suites are very obviously big money, and it makes even more sense on the bottom line when you note how many of said luxury boxes are owned by corporations. That is, all of them. Every. Single. One.
Finance minister Dwight Duncan's chief concern for scrapping the subsidy? Creating affordable tickets for the Toronto Maple Leafs, which currently run the highest ticket price per in the National Hockey League.
Both Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and finance minister Dwight Duncan say they are leaning toward scrapping the subsidy, which costs the government $15 million annually.
McGuinty said the government, mired in a $16 billion deficit, has been warned to get its fiscal house in order and can no longer afford to subsidize corporate entertainment.
By carving out the write-offs, the Ottawa Senators would be forced to fit the bill for every single corporate owned suite at Scotiabank Place - a cost they simply cannot endure at this time, per the words of President Cyril Leeder.
Amusingly, Duncan later noted that he's never been to an Ottawa Senators game.
There's plenty more in this story and I don't want to piggy-back the brilliant work done by local media, so make sure to dial the link up at the top. I'm sure many of you are absolutely blown away by this bombshell right now, as I was when initially reading through.
Right now, we're still in the feeling-out stages, and I'd largely like to believe that Eugene Melnyk, Cyril Leeder, et al. would be the first to play serious hardball if push came to shove. Further, I don't think that the liberal minority can really push this thing through.
Still, it's not the most encouraging news I've ever read.
Back with more later.
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Thanks for reading!
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