. Thrilled to watch you and Rob McElhenney turn around Wrexham, congrats on the club’s promotion. And well played on the sales of Mint Mobile and Aviation gin. You’re on a winning streak.Don’t overpay for the Ottawa Senators. The National Hockey League team is poised to set the new high-water mark in hockey by fetching $1-billion.
In Ottawa, there’s the added attraction of the real estate score that could come with moving to a spanking new downtown arena, and saying goodbye to the suburban traffic jams that make the pre and postgame experience at the Canadian Tire Centre so memorable. That doesn’t fly in Ottawa, a government town with strict rules around entertaining civil servants. At an average price of $66, a Sens ticket is by far the cheapest seat among domestic teams. It’s half the cost of taking in a Toronto Maple Leafs match.The economics of the arena don’t change if the Senators move to a potential new home at a site such as the LeBreton Flats, near Parliament Hill. Government rules will still prevent lobbyists from treating political players to rink-side seats.
The Sens first owner, Bruce Firestone, saw the team as an anchor tenant for a collection of new suburban shopping malls and homes. His debt-financed strategy proved overly ambitious, and Mr. Firestone was forced to sell. His successor, tech executive Rod Bryden, put the team into bankruptcy. Anyone saying there’s easy money to be made by moving the Sens downtown is ignoring six decades of civic heartache in Ottawa.