Hamilton Tiger Cats owner Bob Young is threatening to move the CFL club out of Hamilton. Ward 6 candidate Mike Cluett believes Milton could be a viable alternative.

After months of debate, Hamilton City Councillors finally decided earlier this week on a location for the proposed stadium for the upcoming Toronto Pan Am Games – a stadium that will be funded by all three levels of government. Much to the dismay of current Tiger Cats owner Bob Young, it wasn’t the location he preferred, which has put the club’s long term future in Hamilton in some serious peril.

The City of Hamilton has decided on the West Harbour location, which seems to make sense as the city looks to revitalize the downtrodden core of this once thriving industrial hub. Young, who was prepared to cough up roughly $15 million of his own dough, was pushing for a location on the East Mountain, close to highways and the more affluent outlying, newer areas of the city.

A day before the official decision was made however, Young fired off an angry letter to Hamilton Mayor Fred Eisenberger and City Council pulling out of his involvement with the stadium, stating his regret that the Tiger Cats would be without a home after next season’s lease runs out at 80-year old Ivor Wynne Stadium.

Immediately sports prognosticators everywhere began to wonder just what will become of the historic franchise. Would next door neighbour Burlington build a stadium to house the team? Would Young look to move the club to the growing football hotbed of Quebec City or to the Maritimes in either Moncton or Halifax?

Well, Ward 6 candidate Mike Cluett thinks that Milton could be an option. Yes, Milton.

According to his Twitter account, Cluett met with Milton Mayor Gord Krantz about the possibility yesterday morning, and Krantz has apparently directed the appropriate Town staff to put together a proposal.

From Mike’s blog:

I talked directly with Milton Mayor Gord Krantz early this morning, he will be directing town staff and the economic development department to work on getting a preliminary proposal prepared for review and possibly present to the Pan Am officials and the Tiger Cats franchise.  The Town of Milton is no stranger to the Pan Am committee as just recently they were involved with other municipalities to look at Milton being an option to have locations for the Pan Am games in 2015.

He also explained how the idea of moving the CFL franchise to Milton might not be as far-fetched as you think.

The Town of Milton has the available land to house such a facility available for Pan Am officials and the Tiger Cats to consider. There are many benefits for all parties involved to consider Milton as a viable location for the Pan Am games AND becoming the new home for the Tiger Cats Franchise. The potential location would be on the west side of the 401 Industrial Park in Milton.

By having it there the games and the franchise have easy highway access to Toronto (45 minutes) downtown Kitchener / Waterloo / Cambridge (30 minutes) and residents of Hamilton as well (30 minutes)

Here’s how it can work.

Why Milton as a Pan Am Games partner?

• Willing host
• Proposed site could be easily rezoned for stadium purpose
• Located 20 to 40 minutes from all other Pan Am Games venues
• Located on west side of Greater Toronto Area
• Located 20 minutes from Pearson International Airport
• Proposed stadium site is located on with easy access to Highway 401, North America’s busiest superhighway
• Proposed site alongside Highway 401 would make it highest visibility Pan Am venue in Canada
• Located 20 minutes from Q.E.W. and 10 minutes from Highway 407
• Located in an area with more than six million Ontarians
• Well supported by local hotels, restaurants, general goods merchants and service industry; high-quality municipal services, well-trained workforce
• Easy media access

Why Milton as a Hamilton Tiger-Cats partner?

• Willing host
• Most Milton CFL fans are Hamilton Tiger-Cat supporters
• Proposed site could be easily rezoned for stadium purpose
• Proposed site still reasonably close for many current seasons’ ticket holders to commute to
• Proposed site alongside Highway 401 would make it highest visibility CFL stadium in Canada
• Located 20 minutes from Pearson International Airport
• Located on and easy access to Highway 401, North America’s busiest superhighway
• Located 20 minutes from Q.E.W. and 10 minutes from Highway 407
• Located in an area with more than six million Ontarians
• Well supported by local hotels, restaurants, general goods merchants and service industry; high-quality municipal services, well-trained workforce
• Easy media access

Why west side of 401 Industrial Park?

• Proposed site could be easily rezoned for stadium purpose
• Located 20 minutes from Pearson International Airport
• Located on and easy access to Highway 401, North America’s busiest superhighway
• Located 20 minutes from Q.E.W. and 10 minutes from Highway 407
• Located in an area with more than six million Ontarians
• Well supported by local hotels, restaurants, general goods merchants and service industry; high-quality municipal services, well-trained workforce

So what do you think? If the Tiger Cats were to leave Hamilton, would Milton be a viable option?

From my point of view, it may be worthwhile looking into — although a professional sports franchise situated in a city of 80,000 seems to be a bit of a stretch, even considering Milton’s current and future growth. The team and the Town of Milton would need to look at a few not-so-insignificant issues.

Where would the ‘new’ Tiger Cat fan base would come from and how they would get to Milton? Sure, there is land for a stadium and ample parking (revenues from which Mr. Young would like to pocket) which is a must given Milton’s location in terms of highway access. However, public transit targeted towards fans outside of the current Town is non-existent and the team would badly need to draw from Mississauga, Oakville, Burlington, Hamilton as well as Kitchener-Waterloo to make the franchise viable.

And by drawing fans from places like Oakville and Mississauga, is that starting to chip away at the existing Toronto Argonaut fan base, which is hardly consistent?

What about taxes? Milton residents have become accustomed to one of the lowest Municipal tax rates in the GTA (lower than only the City of Toronto we believe). What if taxes at the Municipal level were increased to fund the construction and ongoing maintenance of a brand new stadium which would essentially sit empty for the majority of the calendar year? It’s hard to think Milton’s relatively small tax base could take on such a burden without adjusting property taxes substantially upward, which is why I’m not sure operating a pro sports franchise in a small city is a wise thing. There is a reason only cities in the hundreds of thousands in population at minimum are considered as viable destinations for professional sports, other than simply stadium attendance.

Again, these are important things to consider and I assume no stone would be left unturned by the league, Bob Young and our faithful Town Councillors. However, that is the problem: this is the Town of Milton and the Canadian Football League we’re talking about here, which strangely makes me a little less confident in all of this.

One thing I want to make clear: I absolutely do not want to rain on Mr. Cluett’s parade — his enthusiasm for the Town of Milton, the Ti-Cats, the CFL and his efforts so far into investigating the possibilities here should be commended and applauded. I know Mike personally and he has no shortage of common sense. However, I think we all know how this one will play out.

This is pro sports — you know the formula: Rich owner needs a new stadium which will generate the increased revenues needed to make his franchise viable in the marketplace; rich owner solicits all levels of government to pay for said stadium and based on the outcome, decides how much (or how little) he/she will need to invest; if any hiccups are experienced, rich owner holds the current city/market hostage, threatens to move the franchise to a new, more viable city/market; said ultimatum tugs at the heart strings of residents/politicians; the city/market caves to appease rich owner and voila, everyone ends up happy as the [insert storied franchise here] stays in town to play in their brand new publically-funded stadium and rich owner lives happily ever after.

Essentially what worries me is that Milton residents will get all excited about the possibility of actually having their very own CFL franchise and spend a lot of time and money in figuring out how to make it work, only to realize down the road that acquiring the Tiger Cats was never realistic and that Milton was nothing more than a bargaining chip for the league and Mr. Young.

In the meantime, we will watch with much interest to see what the Town will come up with and where the City of Hamilton goes from here — could they possibly bow down to Mr. Young and reverse their decision and opt to build the new stadium out on the East Mountain after all?

My message to Mr. Young would be this: If you pay for the stadium, guess what? You get to decide where to build it. Stop holding Hamilton, Milton (and whomever else wants to get involved) hostage.

Stay tuned. And pass the popcorn.

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