Actor Ryan Reynolds waves as he is recognized during a break in the play as the Ottawa Senators take on the Vancouver Canucks in Ottawa, on Nov. 8, 2022.Justin Tang/The Canadian Press
Hi Ryan,
Loved Deadpool. 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 muck it up.
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. Ryan, teaming up with the real estate developers who built most of Markham – the Bratty family’s privately owned Remington Group – to drop a billion bucks on the Sens could end up being your sequel to Green Lantern.
We’ve watched you cringe when talking about that turkey of a film. Great concept, brutal execution. That sums up the Senators’ potential as a sports and real estate play: Attractive idea, insanely difficult to execute.
The appeal is obvious. Buy the team, you join the most exclusive of clubs – pro sports owner. And with NHL, NBA and NFL teams all selling for record prices, ownership seems like a licence to print money.
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.
Set aside any fan boy obsession with the Sens. Let’s talk about the business case for buying the team, starting with the hockey experience. Every other Canadian NHL team can charge premium prices for tickets, along with food and booze, because they cater to a corporate crowd tapping expense accounts or CEO-level salaries.
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.
Who wants to buy the Ottawa Senators? Here’s a list of potential owners
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 city will never be home to as many high-paying head office jobs as Winnipeg or Edmonton, let alone Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto and Montreal.
Ryan, you and Snoop Dogg and the Weeknd and every other real estate neophyte lining up to buy the Senators also need to review the sordid history of property projects linked to the team.
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.
History shows the LeBreton Flats are where developers’ dreams go to die. In 1962, prime minister John Diefenbaker’s government expropriated the site and tore down its working-class homes. The plan was to redevelop the site in time for centennial celebrations, in 1967.
The LeBreton Flats have been barren ever since, with federal, provincial and city politicians fighting over a string of proposals for the property. Former Senators owner Eugene Melnyk, who passed way last year, tried to cut a deal with the current crop of developers, and ended up suing them. It’s entirely possible the entities that currently control the site, including the federally run National Capital Commission, lose patience with the Senators and decide to develop the property without a home for hockey.
Ryan, before you sign a $1-billion cheque for the Senators, consider this scenario. In Blake Lively, you have a wife who seems to take enormous joy from jabbing you on Twitter. Buying an NHL team with little revenue growth potential and an arena in the ‘burbs, when pro sports valuations are soaring, may leave you open to a world of pain. A Green Lantern sequel may be a better investment.
Andrew Willis