A new poll suggests the majority of Canadians would be in favour of another NHL team coming to their community, but that support significantly drops when taxpayers’ money enters the equation.
The findings are in line with past surveys, indicating that most Canadians haven’t changed their minds when it comes to footing the bill for a professional sports franchise.
“Ever since I remember, this has been a perennial debate in Canada,” said David Coletto, CEO of Abacus Data, which conducted the online survey in April as part of The Canada Project.
The poll of more than 1,500 Canadians aged 18 and over found that 56 per cent of respondents would support another NHL club in their area, compared to 12 per cent who opposed and 32 per cent who were indifferent.
However, when respondents were told taxpayers’ money was needed to help get that team, support significantly declined to 27 per cent, while opposition climbed to 61 per cent; 12 per cent maintained no view.
“We’ve seen this before,” said Coletto, referencing a 2011 Canadian Press Harris-Decima survey that revealed similar results.
“Most of the public is generally uncomfortable with governments funding professional-sports organizations. If you’re a municipal government, infrastructure and other services are underfunded. If you’re a provincial government, [there are complaints in polling] about the quality of hospitals and schools. It seems for a lot of people to be an inappropriate use of money to support a professional sports team.”
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Some argue new teams or arenas can produce an economic spinoff in the surrounding area. Coletto notes how the recently opened Rogers Place, paid for with the help of taxpayers’ finances, has transformed Edmonton’s downtown core, but also says the promise of development is not always a slam-dunk selling point to the public.
“It requires a very clear argument to get people on board and even then, you are probably going to be left with a divide,” he said.
GrammerPants on June 27th, 2017 at 21:13 UTC »
No. We do not need a situation like in the states with the NFL. We do not need more things that privatize the profits while socializing the costs.
RedSquirrelFtw on June 27th, 2017 at 19:27 UTC »
The NHL, and individual teams have a ridiculous amount of money, there is absolutely no reason tax dollars should go towards any of it. I was shocked when I watched the John Oliver segment on that to find out that often times it really is tax dollars that are used to build sports team stadiums and arenas. That is mind boggling. It should be the team/league that pays for it. It's their building, and they're basically a private corporation.
doop_zoopler on June 27th, 2017 at 19:25 UTC »
I sure as fuck do. Not like they lower any of the fucking costs or games by using tax money for arenas.
Do I even get a tax payer discount? Nope. I like hockey and all but get fucked. You think tax payers could fund an office for my business?
You'd think over 30 years at an arena a percentage of sales and all could fund it.