SKYDOME

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF SPORTS

“The first retractable-roof stadium built in the major leagues, Toronto's striking SkyDome opened on June 5, 1989 and became an immediate landmark in Toronto -- as the tallest ballpark in the majors it can be seen from most parts of the city. Whether it's been a complete success is another matter: Since its opening the SkyDome has been a financial challenge for the Blue Jays and the many provincial and national governmental groups that took part in its construction. Its owners once were forced to file for bankruptcy, and the Blue Jays say that the stadium doesn't provide enough in revenues for the team to be compete adequately. At one time Toronto was consider a large market that could compete with the Yankees (remember when Roger Clemens went to Toronto and signed that huge contract?), but since that time the Canadian dollar has slid and the economy in both Toronto and Canada soured.

It has the unique feature of having a hotel as part of the stadium -- the Renaissance Toronto Hotel, a 348-room hotel with 70 rooms overlooking the field. Robbie Alomar actually lived in this hotel when he played for the Blue Jays, and there has been more than one time when a couple participated in an amorous activity (with the drapes open) during a ballgame.

The SkyDome also features the largest video display board in North America -- three stories high by nine stories wide”. BallParkWatch

The whole NFL business came up recently, though this is far from the only time it has, because billionaire Ted Rodgers bought the SkyDome and Blue jays franchise and promises to upgrade the facility and the MLB team.

SkyDome was originally constructed in 1989 at a cost of $580 million paid for by the taxpayers of Toronto and Ontario. Costs included building a hotel, a health club, demolishing Toronto's main water pumping station, restructuring a new one across the street, building new streets and bridges, and other area infrastructures.

As Toronto Sun Reporter Ken Fidlin asks; “But, lost in the latest solution to the CFL's problems in Toronto is how SkyDome became such an abhorrent relic in the span of 15 years. How does a place go from one of the wonders of the world in 1989, to a has-been in 2004?”

How does it happen, they outsourced the computer and electrical infrastructure for the facility which would end up costing millions in upkeep. Being one of the early P3’s-public private partnerships-during the economic downturn and the regime of Mike Harris, and his hell-bent on privatization Tory Government, the privatize at any cost forgot about the costs of outsourcing and privatization. One of those is cheap materials used in construction, and outsourcing in the computer systems. The collapse of portions of the SkyDome roof and the need to upgrade maintenance of the building after only a decade was one reason for SkyDomes bankruptcy.

Outsourcing has been the mainstay of computer systems for many years, and it works because you have to come back and buy a new system on a continual basis, if you don’t you will get no support for your old one. Ask yourself about how many computers you have had to buy over the last decade to keep up with software. See Canada's Billion Dollar P3 Boondoogle

Now multiple that by millions spent by all levels of government on obsolete stand alone systems and you can guess at the profit that can be made by profiteers at the publics expense.

When SkyDome opened to the public in 1989, several stand-alone computer systems were acquired to manage the profusion of security details:

* A photo ID solution was selected to produce identity cards for the 3,000-plus employees, team members and tenants. * The parking lots and entrances were equipped with 36 rotating and stationary CCTV cameras, integrated to eight monitors. * Magnetic stripe card readers were installed in all elevators to control access to secured floors. * Gates were equipped with door locks and alarms to ward off illegal entry from the street.

Finally, the readers, locks and alarms were wired to a central access control database.

All was state-of-the-art equipment at that time. All was supposed to be expandable. And all, as it turned out, was poorly supported by resellers who would eventually go out of business or lose interest in the service contracts.

When that happened, says SkyDome director of security Kelly Keyes, "things deteriorated very quickly."

"By early 1996," Keyes explains, "we realized our security systems were falling to pieces. We could no longer purchase film or other materials for badging because our only supplier went bankrupt. As for access control, we literally had to shut down all the alarms and door locks whenever the stadium opened for an event.

"To make matters worse, the wiring was not properly installed or maintained, so glitches were popping up all over the place. What we originally thought was an investment in leading-edge hardware quickly became money spent on the upkeep of out-of-date and malfunctioning technology."

Keyes began her search for an integrated security system to include: badging, access control and CCTV solutions linked across one network, using a common database.

When the quotes began to arrive, however, she discovered the all-in-one approach was "too expensive, well beyond anything we would need, and still wouldn't offer the features we were looking for." Reluctantly, she turned again to stand-alone technology.” Toronto Skydome, Jul 1, 1997 by James Whittall

The other reason for SkyDomes bankruptcy besides the costs of maintenance was the fact that those private investors who coughed up $5 million each made sure they made their money off the Dome as fast as they could. So what did the taxpayers as investors get in their ‘public’ stadium, they got a private capitalist boondoggle that made money for the private investors and left taxpayers holding the bag. But hey Torontonians got to cheer for their MBL team and the Argos, while forking over more cash in parking, beer, and ticket prices. And who benefits, why the folks who put up the $5 million each.

Court props up collapsing SkyDome

Toronto's 'crown jewel' in hock for $58-million

Saturday, November 28, 1998
John Saunders And Paul Waldie
The Globe And Mail

“Toronto's domed stadium, not yet 10 years old, was granted refuge in a form of bankruptcy last night, despite angry words from lenders who are owed more than $58-million.

It is not clear that it would be profitable even if all differences were settled, but its current management complains of special problems left over from a disastrous public-private partnership that built it in the 1980s.

Private partners who put up $5-million each provided about a quarter of the $600-million construction cost, but got most of their money back in special benefits.

"For its $5-million contribution, each consortium member received exclusive advertising rights, promotion rights and preferred supplier rights, rights to a skybox and parking spaces and other rights," laments a 242-page document filed in court by the SkyDome's lawyers. The deals still drain stadium coffers, it says.

The consortium featured interests as diverse as Coca-Cola, Ford, McDonald's, Canadian Airlines and The Toronto Sun (which got rights to run dome tours).

The consortium also involved the doomed Olympia & York real-estate empire (which at one time had exclusive rights to supply toilet paper).

Without giving details, the document asserts that some special arrangements compel the stadium "to pay prices or rates for goods and services which are not competitive, or to provide goods and services at prices or rates which are not competitive," threatening its financial survival. The SkyDome's fate depends partly on its ability to cancel or renegotiate the contracts, it says.

However, the biggest issue in the bankruptcy is whether the SkyDome can complete a new lease with its chief tenant, the Toronto Blue Jays baseball club, on terms that demand sacrifices from other interests.

The stadium and the Jays have already reached a tentative deal in which the ballclub would provide a $3.5-million emergency loan (with special priority over other SkyDome debt) and would get a bigger slice of the revenue pie -- an extra $72-million -- over the final nine years of a new 10-year lease.”

After a decade fiscal mismanagement and profiteering by its private investors, SkyDome in order to get out of debt was sold in 1999 to Sportsco International at a fire sale price for somewhere around $80-$110 million. Sportsco is one of several global sports companies of the rich national bourgeoisie in North America, in this case Norman Seagram of Molson’s and his longtime American friend and partner; Alan Cohen (see corporate profile below).

SkyDome was subsequently sold last winter for the bargain basement price of 25 million dollars to another member of the Canadian Bourgeoisie, Ted Rogers of Rodgers Cable and Broadcasting/Rodgers Communications, and his pal Paul Godfrey President of the Blue Jays, and former Publisher of the Toronto Sun, one of the original 5 million dollar investors who profiteered off the stadium leaving it in bankruptcy.

One ballpark, slightly used, cheap

November 29, 2004

Baseball stadiums typically cost upwards of $400 million to build, but what are they actually worth to own? For an answer, look no further than Toronto, where the SkyDome has been sold again, this time to Rogers Communications, owners of the Toronto Blue Jays, for $30 million (Canadian).Jays CEO Paul Godfrey called it "an opportunity for us to acquire a tremendous asset at an extremely attractive price," and he's not kidding: That's a 73% discount from the $110 million that Sportsco paid for North America's first retractable-roofed stadium in 1999, and a whopping 95% off SkyDome's initial $600 million price tag (most of which was footed by the good people of Ontario). Cities that are counting on taking possession of their stadiums in lieu of getting paid back on stadium "loans," take note - you listening, St. Louis? How about you, Washington, D.C.?

What a deal, and now they want to bring in the NFL, is that because the CFL Argo’s will no longer be playing in SkyDome, because they are building their own stadium. The idea is to reduce the size of SkyDome and make it MLB regulation, which would also make it NFL regulation size. Remember like our balls, our football fields are bigger.

Toronto is not the only city to succumb to Stadium fever, build it and they will come is the motto of the business elite who are also the team owners. They want the public to pay and pay and pay for their profitable sports businesses.

We build it they buy it at fire-sale prices, paid for by salary caps on their workers (the players). Expansion cannot happen in the professional sports industry with out salary caps, as Sportsco International VP, Alan Cohen proved when he introduced it into the NBA. It has nothing to do with reducing ticket costs, or reducing operational costs, it has to do with making a profit and reducing the impact of workers wages (player salaries) on the bottom line.

“The findings in this article do not suggest that there is a significant difference between a soft salary cap and a payroll tax as far as placing limits on salary growth is concerned. If a salary cap were enforced as a hard cap, the difference might be greater because this would be a firm and direct limit. Economists know that programs for controlling wages and prices at the national level, sometimes called incomes policies, are not particularly effective. The same might be said of industrial wage and spending controls in sports. Player salaries are mostly determined by market conditions, such as attendance, television revenues, luxury boxes, licensing revenues, league expansion, and stadium deals. Salary caps and payroll taxes may seem beneficial to owners, but their effects appear to be more symbolic and cosmetic than fundamental.” Salary Caps in Professional Team Sports, Compensation and Working Conditions Spring 1998

Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver, all have built facilities that have been sold off to pay for their maintenance costs at fire sale prices. And still the owners cry “gimme more” as is currently the case with the NHL lockout. What part of “sports is a business” don’t the fans understand?

“In an interview with the Times, Cohen was asked if it were more important to win a championship or to earn profits for his shareholders. He replied that as a public company, his first priority was to his shareholders: “That’s the bottom line.”

And that’s the deal when it comes to the selling of SkyDome and the musings of it’s owners about getting an NFL franchise in Toronto.

NYC group: Stadium benefits overstated

April 08, 2004

A report by New York City's Regional Plan Association (PDF file available here) says other cities' experience with major stadium/convention center projects shows they're poor catalysts for commercial development - putting a dent in the arguments of Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff, whose $5-billion-plus Hudson Yards plan would rely on property taxes from 28 million square feet of new office development to pay off its bonds.

Neither Seattle's downtown stadiums and convention center nor Baltimore's twin stadiums have sparked "significant commercial or residential growth," according to the RPA, while with Toronto's Skydome "the hope that the central business district would expand into this area never panned out." As for St. Louis' Edward Jones Dome, the prototype of a football/convention complex along the lines of New York's proposed Jets stadium, the RPA notes that while it "successfully creates the kind of synergy between the stadium and the convention center, the area around it is barren and deserted" on non-game days. The report concludes:

"When clustered together, stadiums and convention centers often make for a successful tourist corridor but as yet, they have not shown the ability to sponsor development of intensive mixed-use districts. There is little evidence of such facilities thriving in districts as dense as the one proposed for the Far West Side."

The much touted social benefit of stadiums is exaggerated if unproven economically. But the ruling class, those with the deep pockets, invests not so much in the infrastructure as in the promotion of building the infrastructure at taxpayer’s expense and then buy it back when it can no longer be supported. The reason it can’t be supported is that these same capitalist fund right wing think tanks and political parties that promote tax breaks and smaller government. The real infrastructure needs of our cities, social housing, roads, sewer and electrical upgrades are forgotten for the need of “sports” infrastructure. It’s Bread and Circuses for the masses and another profitable opportunity for the rich and monied elites.

Typical of the boosters of sports capitalism, they play on the nationalism of the population. Our city versus your city, our province versus your province, our country versus your country, sports jingoism replaces the jingoism of war, but is just as insidious. It builds the We’re Number One, ideology that so quickly can go from fans in the stands, to the marching bands of the war machine of Imperialism.

Sports are Political, and it is ruled by the political economy of capitalism, even amateur sports if there is such a creature any longer. One look at the globalized sports movement of the Olympics shows that amateur sports no longer actually exist, more and more professionals are entering the Olympics as individuals and teams. The old 19^th century values of the ruling class, the last of the aristocratic pretensions of the bourgeoisie, have passed on to be replaced with the commoditization of sports and athletes. Athletes even those who are amateur, are workers in sports, whether paid a salary or given time off and collecting sponsorships for their training, it is still ‘work’ and ‘labour’ producing the commodity so valued by the sports nationalist, a win, a medal.

To rephrase Marx, the ruling sports are the sports of the ruling classes. And in North America that market is American Teams and Sports, and the Toronto ruling classes want into that lucrative market. But what is good for the ruling class is not necessarily good for us or the players, or our national games like Hockey and Football. But the ruling class is willing to sacrifice our sports, on the altar of profit, profit sharing, cable TV contracts and of course, salary caps.

Rogers plays name game with SkyDome

Toronto stadium now called Rogers Centre

Keith Mcarthur and Richard Bloom –

Globe and Mail, Thursday, February 3, 2005

Some might say Ted Rogers is toying with the curse of the corporate playground.

There's a veritable graveyard of companies that have shelled out big bucks to have their corporate brand carved into the sides of stadiums and arenas only to become embroiled in scandal or insolvency, such as Enron Field in Houston, Adelphia Coliseum in Tennessee and the Canadian Airlines Saddledome in Calgary.

Mr. Rogers, chief executive officer of Rogers Communications Inc., announced yesterday that Toronto's SkyDome, which the firm acquired recently for $25-million, is being rebranded as Rogers Centre.

But sports marketing experts say that despite some naming disasters, the move makes great sense for Rogers -- not only because it competes in an industry where marketing to consumers is paramount, but also because the price is right.

Since Rogers owns the stadium, which is located along the city's major downtown highway, it won't pay the usually hefty naming rights.

"From Rogers's standpoint it's completely a natural," said Bob Stellick of Toronto's Stellick Marketing Communications Inc.

"The question will be how large a Rogers sign can they stick on the Gardiner Expressway with 400,000 cars a day going by?"

One of the challenges for Rogers will be getting fans (the company also owns the stadium's major tenant, baseball's Toronto Blue Jays) and media to use the new name. After all, many fans still think the National Hockey League's Montreal Canadiens play (when they're not locked out) in the Molson Centre. That building was renamed the Bell Centre in 2002.

"When you're renaming something, it's often very difficult to get the media to call it by the revised name," Mr. Stellick said. "What will people on [all-sports TV network] TSN call it? Obviously they're a competitor."

Bell Globemedia's TSN competes directly against Rogers-owned Sportsnet. Bell Globemedia also owns the CTV network and The Globe and Mail.

Companies look at various factors when calculating the value of naming rights. The most obvious is how often the brand name is used in the media and the local community. But naming deals also include various other rights, from exclusive supplier and advertising relationships to corporate boxes.

In 1994, General Motors of Canada Ltd. snapped up the rights to slap its name on the side of Vancouver's pro hockey and basketball facility, a decision spokesman Stew Low says has been money well spent. (The company hasn't disclosed what it paid to call the arena General Motors Place.)

"It's really all about marketing and building your presence and awareness within that community," he said. "It has absolutely worked."

Because of the deal, GM's name is used millions of times each year on media broadcasts, ticket stubs and more, Mr. Low said. But he said companies have to do more than spend money for the name; they also have to leverage the investment.

GM does so by putting car displays in the venue, painting its name on the ice surface, branding the boards around the ice and getting involved in the NHL's Vancouver Canucks' charitable foundation, he said. "It has to be a holistic approach as opposed to just the name on the building."

Keith McIntyre, president of K. Mac & Associates in Mississauga, which advises companies on sports marketing, says renaming SkyDome makes sense for Rogers. He said branding of the Air Canada Centre in Toronto also works well, since the airline takes a disproportionate share of revenue from business people, who show up in large numbers to watch pro sports.

But for every deal that works, there are just as many that don't, Mr. McIntyre said. He believes naming rights have become passé because they are now so common.

"At one point it was a unique way to do sports marketing, to get a company name or product out there. But everybody's doing it at all levels now," he said.

Part of the reason there are so many failures among companies who buy naming rights is that fast-rising firms see it as a great way to look big and important. And occasionally, companies that rise fast, fall just as quickly.

"It's a bit of an ego boost for a lot of these companies. It's a bit of an ego boost for these CEOs," Mr. McIntyre said.

Houston's Enron Field has been renamed Minute Maid Park after fraudulent accounting at Enron Corp. led to it filing for bankruptcy protection in 2001. Adelphia Coliseum became The Coliseum after Adelphia Communications Corp. filed for bankruptcy protection in 2001 after a major scandal. And the Canadian Airlines Saddledome became Pengrowth Saddledome after the nearly insolvent airline was acquired by Air Canada in 2000.

The stadium name game

Rogers Communications announced yesterday that the SkyDome, above, the home of the Toronto Blue Jays, has been renamed the Rogers Centre. Many of Canada's sports palaces have been branded with corporate monikers, but there are also examples where companies have shelled out big dollars before succumbing to scandal or insolvency.

Canadian sports venues with corporate names

Air Canada Centre Toronto

n NHL, NBA

Canad Inns Stadium Winnipeg

n CFL

Rexall Place Edmonton

(formerly Northlands Coliseum,

formerly SkyReach Centre)

n NHL

Bell Centre Montreal

(formerly Molson Centre)

n NHL

GM Place Vancouver

n NHL

The Corel Centre Ottawa

n NHL

MTS Centre Winnipeg

Naming mistakes

Enron Field Houston

n Now Minute Maid Park

n Fraudulent accounting led to a filing for bankruptcy protection in 2001.

Canadian Airlines Saddledome Calgary

n Now Pengrowth Saddledome

n Was losing $2-million a day before being acquired by Air Canada in 2000.

Adelphia Stadium Tennessee

n Now The Coliseum

n Filed for bankruptcy protection in 2001 because of major scandal.

PSINet Stadium Baltimore

n Now M&T Bank Stadium

n PSINet filed for bankruptcy protection in 2001.

TWA Dome St. Louis

n Now Edward Jones Dome

n Financial troubles at TWA led demise of brand through American Airlines takeover

THE ECONOMIC BENEFITS OF SPORTS STADIUMS ARE EXAGGERATED

A 1996 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report, "Tax-Exempt Bonds and the Economics of Professional Sports Stadiums" concluded that sports stadia represent a small percentage of a local economy. There is little real impact or multiplier effect associated with building sports stadia. That the building of stadia merely transfers consumption from one area or one type of leisure activity to another, and that overall, sports and stadia contribute little to the local economy and instead represent an investment that costs the public a lot while failing to return the initial investment. Hundreds of other studies and books by individuals such as long-time sports economists Arthur T. Johnson in Minor League Baseball and Economic Development, Mark Rosentraub in Major League Losers, Kenneth Shropshire in The Sports Franchise Game, and Roger Noll and Andrew Zimbalist in Sports, Jobs, and Taxes, reach the same conclusion — public support of professional and minor league sports is a bad investment. In practically none of the cities these studies examined did new sports stadia lead to any significant new private investment or provide for any significant economic benefits to the local economy besides the jobs generated by the initial capital construction of the stadia. More importantly, the new stadia generally were not even profitable or self-financing. Sportsfare: The political economy of publicly funded stadiums by David Schultz

Image impacts captures the concept that a city may experience benefits from being a “major league city”, home to a franchise from one of the four dominant sports leagues in North America. Proponents routinely cite image building as one of the primary benefits of building a new stadium or arena. Image related impacts include increased community visibility and an ability to better compete for relocating businesses and households. The status of being a major league city is one that has driven many cities to vigorously pursue major league sports, as cities like Jacksonville, Indianapolis, and Nashville pursued and eventually acquired teams through massive investments in sports facilities.

While most analysts agree that there are image impacts following a new sports facility, identifying these and quantifying these impacts has been difficult. To be sure, having a major league sports team allows smaller cities like Green Bay, San Jose, and Memphis to have a national and international marketing presence not likely available to them otherwise. The value of this community visibility remains unknown. Studies of business and household relocation decisions have found sports facilities to be largely irrelevant, as business are usually more interested in factors such as low taxes and a positive business climate, while households too want low taxes, but also good schools and good medical facilities (Danielson, 1997). Finally, while “major league city” status is desirable, there is no evidence that this status conveys any quantifiable benefits to a community.

Political impacts refer, not surprisingly, to the political costs and benefits that flow from a sports facility. Because sports facilities are high profile projects, they offer opportunities for politicians to rally a community around redevelopment efforts, in the process catapulting a leader to higher political office. For example, William Donald Schaeffer’s efforts to redevelop downtown Baltimore, including support for plans for two new downtown stadia, played a role in his ascendancy to the state’s governorship. Similarly, Cleveland’s George Voinovich support of the Gateway Project helped propel him to statewide prominence and eventually to the governor’s office and later the U.S. Senate.

In their case study of New Haven, Johnson and Sack (1996) found that political impacts were among the among the most important of the noneconomic impacts. Minority and poor residents in the city saw a tennis facility as just another in a long line of large, expensive projects that benefited a limited set of individuals, with only very minor trickle-down benefits to those community residents most in need. The authors concluded that these political costs were considerable, requiring substantial energy and time from the administration to see the project through. Pelissero et al (1991) identified a very similar conflict in Chicago surrounding a new ballpark and a new football stadium. In that city, political leaders had to very carefully manage both sides of the debate and attempt to balance the wants of the teams and sports fans versus the needs of poor and minority communities.

Identifying the Real Costs and Benefits of Sports Facilities Tim Chapin © 2002 Lincoln Institute of Land Policy Working Paper

What Ruth Built, Let George Tear Asunder
By Neil deMause

What has really changed, though, is the financial structure of baseball. When the owners and players finally settled on a new collective bargaining agreement on August 30, 2002, forestalling a strike that had seemed all but certain, one of the key provisions was an expanded revenue-sharing system among rival clubs: henceforth, on each new dollar earned, about forty cents would be sent back to the league for redistribution to other teams. And while, in general, revenue-sharing payments were to be paid on gross revenue, not net—no deducting (as Steinbrenner has done) that $20 million payment to yourself for negotiating your own cable deal, in other words—teams would be allowed to deduct "stadium operations costs," including debt payments on construction bonds.

Nobody noticed it at the time, but this was a huge bombshell in the world of stadium finance—in effect, an enormous "tax break" for spending private funds on stadium construction. The St. Louis Cardinals were apparently the first to take advantage of it: within months of the new CBA, Cards management was offering to shoulder two-thirds of the cost of a new $387 million stadium—without mentioning that by doing so, they'd be reducing their revenue-sharing payments to the rest of the league by about $6 million a year.

As far as taking advantage of the new revenue-sharing deduction, though, Steinbrenner's plan would dwarf that of the Cardinals. By spending $750 million on a new stadium, the Yankees would reduce their reported revenue by about $40 million a year; multiply this amount by their 39 percent revenue-sharing "bracket," and you get an annual revenue-sharing break of $15 million. Over time, about $300 million worth of Steinbrenner's new pleasure palace would come straight out of the pockets of the other twenty-nine teams.

The implications of all this for baseball are staggering, and a bit of a mixed bag for fans. First off, the fact that the revenue-sharing plan encourages private spending would be a huge boon to taxpayers—the Cardinals' new stadium will be only the second ballpark in the last forty years to be funded primarily through private sources, and the new CBA no doubt deserves much of the credit.

For fans of baseball's few remaining historic ballparks, however, the Steinbrenner dodge could be a disaster. Because while it creates an incentive for owners to fund new stadiums with their own money, it also creates a huge new incentive to subject old parks to the wrecking ball.

A simple thought experiment shows why. Say a team—let's call them the Red Sox—is weighing renovations to its existing park versus building anew. Suppose that the Red Sox have crunched the numbers for the two options and determined that they can either spend $50 million on renovations that would, over time, bring in $100 million in new revenue, or spend $500 million on a new stadium that would bring in $400 million in new revenue. Easy choice, right? Renovations make a moderate profit; building anew turns a large loss; so renovation wins out.

Now let's apply the revenue-sharing deduction and see what happens. The $50 million in renovation now creates a $20 million revenue-sharing savings, meaning the effective cost to the Sox is $30 million; new revenue remains the same, so profits from renovation are now $70 million. Meanwhile, the $500 million build-new option creates a $200 million deduction, so its effective cost is $300 million; new revenue remains $400 million, so building anew now turns a $100 million profit. Suddenly a new stadium means a bigger profit, even though, in pure economic terms, it would be a money loser.

Since baseball's new stadium boom began in 1989 with Toronto's Sky-Dome, most of the sport's "classic" ballparks have either been demolished or abandoned: Comiskey Park, Memorial Stadium, Cleveland Municipal Stadium, Tiger Stadium, Candlestick Park, County Stadium. Those few that remain—Fenway Park, Wrigley Field, Yankee Stadium, and Dodger Stadium—have survived mostly because the teams that play in them have decided, reluctantly at times, that if they could keep packing fans into the old buildings, it wasn't worth the tremendous costs of building anew. Fenway Park, in particular, came perilously close to the wrecking ball in 2000, only to have plans for a replacement falter when local banks insisted that the potential new revenue wasn't enough to pay off the new debt. Today, with the revenue-sharing breaks to be had, those same banks might say: Go ahead, bring on the bulldozers.

It's a dangerous moment for classic ballparks, as the four remaining holdouts to the mallpark boom are all publicly mulling tearing down and starting fresh. Wrigley Field was recently granted city landmark status, but after this summer's falling concrete incidents, the once-unthinkable talk has begun around Chicago of whether the Tribune Corp. would be better off razing Wrigley for more luxury-box-friendly confines. The former owners of the Dodgers had floated the idea of tearing down Dodger Stadium before selling out to Frank McCourt—perhaps ominously, a Boston-based real estate developer. And while John Henry has given every indication of going full-speed ahead with more modest renovations to Fenway Park—a couple thousand seats here, a couple thousand there, along the lines of the relatively unobtrusive additions already made atop the right field roof and the Green Monster—it's hard to see how he could long resist the lure of luxury suites coupled with a huge revenue-sharing windfall, especially when his hated AL East rivals were already availing themselves of it.

None of these parks, nor Yankee Stadium itself, is doomed just yet. Even at sixty cents on the dollar, new stadiums remain staggeringly expensive to build—and nearly impossible to make work without appeals for public cash. It will be interesting to see if the rave reviews continue for Steinbrenner's plan once that $400 million in public "infrastructure" cash hits the city council docket. Moreover, the remaining owners, those who'd be footing the bill for their rivals' new parks, could yet revolt and eliminate the construction-debt deduction when the next CBA is negotiated in 2006.

If not, though, baseball's attempts to level the playing field between teams could end up creating a windfall for rich teams at the expense of their less-rich competitors—and destroy much of baseball's remaining heritage in the process. In the long, sad history of baseball ownership, that could be the bitterest irony yet.—EFQ

SPORTS: THE RULING CLASS GENTLEMAN’S ENTERTAINMENT (AND INVESTMENT)

Professional sports were organised in mining and industrial towns and cities as businesses, while amateur spectator sports, particularly "American" football, were introduced on university campuses. Because Britain was still the global hegemonic power, its sports (football, cricket, athletics) proliferated throughout the world, superseding traditional games and adopting national identities. At the turn of the century the Olympic Games were revived by Western patricians to promote national prowess. During the 1920s and 1930s professional and university sports reached an unparalleled popularity, supported by local working class and middle class spectators. The British Empire Games and football's World Cup were organised during this period. After World War II, the United States assumed imperial hegemony, which resulted in the extension of "American" sports (baseball, basketball, volleyball) throughout the world, generally taking on national modes. Professional and collegiate sports did become increasingly influenced by television and corporate sponsors in the 1960s, but retained a national orientation. Moreover, international sports competitions were still run by bourgeois elites who were not preoccupied with making profits. During the past two decades, however, there has been a marked change in how the sports industry has operated. This is seen in the implementation by the owners and managers of sport of globalised strategies designed to generate enormous profits. These strategies, in fact, have paralleled and complemented the restructuring occurring in the global economy. "Globalization and Sport", George Wright

The Pivotal Role Played by Elite Groups in Canadian Cricket

Cricket was the most popular summer game in independent schools which used English public schools as their models and were often predominantly staffed by English teachers. Upper Canada College is a prime example of this tradition where even to this day cricket is played. In the nineteenth century, the strong bond between Upper Canada College and Toronto Cricket Club was established and has now existed for over 150 years. Both institutions have catered to an elite group which have included upper- and middle-class English immigrants and Canadian anglophiles who kept cricket within their own social confines. In the early years this helped sustain the game but in the twentieth century has hindered its domestication.

Many cricket clubs in the nineteenth century copied the trend that had been established in Toronto. Woodstock and Darlington both had cricket clubs which were socially exclusive and were the premier teams in those towns. They were eventually replaced by baseball teams which were open to a wider spectrum of the public.

As the nineteenth century drew to a close, Canadian-born or –educated cricketers began to play a more prominent part in determining the future of the game. They were usually educated in an independent school and came from a selectgroup of male middle- and upper-class Canadians who were either first- or second-generation immigrants from England. They were found mostly in Toronto, Hamilton, Ottawa, and Montreal and were imbued with the Corinthian philosophyof amateurism.

Professionalism in late nineteenth-century Canada was frowned upon by “gentlemen” who cherished the very English notion of amateurism in sport. Metcalfe is very clear about the hegemonic control exerted by the elite classes who governed amateur sport and had no need or desire for remuneration. The ideology and structures of amateur sport . . . were rooted in the ethic of Victorian England—hard work, structured inequality, and obedience to the legally constituted authority.

Later in the twentieth century, cricket enjoyed the support of two prominent Canadian citizens who invested their personal wealth in promoting Canadian teams both at home and abroad. Norman Seagram, who was born in 1879 in Waterloo and was part of the Seagram family empire built on distilling and horse racing, financed a private cricket tour to England in 1922. They were called the Norman Seagram Xl and were a team of experienced Canadian players. Although they did not win a game, they continued the tradition of being fine Canadian gentlemen and were granted the ultimate cricket honor: a game against the MCC at Lord’s.

A Brief History of The Toronto Cricket Club By Edgar A. Brach 2003 “The Club became a vagabond club and in the early 1920s, to the rescue came a group of benevolent cricketers spearheaded by Norman Seagram, one of the most prominent and generous players of the time. This group which included George Wm. Gooderham, Edward F Seagram, Thomas W .Seagram, Norman Seagram and Robert A Laidlaw showed great foresight and purchased from the Kendrick Land Company a parcel of land in the outskirts of Toronto near the Armour Estate at Wilson Ave and Avenue Rd. for $ $40,880 and build a cricket pitch and club house for and additional $24,495.”

SPORTSCO INTERNATIONAL

Norman M Seagram

Chairman of the Board at Hydrogenics Corporation (USA)

Norman M. Seagram was elected Chairman of our board of directors in July 2000. Mr. Seagram was President of Sportsco International LP from February 2001 to March 2003. From September 1996 to May 1997, Mr. Seagram was President and Chief Executive Officer of Molson Inc., a company that he had previously served for 24 years in a variety of senior management positions. From October 1992 to August 1996, Mr. Seagram was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Air Liquide Canada, Inc., a producer of industrial gases. Mr. Seagram is a trustee of Trinity College School and serves on the International Advisory Council of INSEAD, France, and on the advisory board of the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering, University of Toronto. Mr. Seagram resides in Toronto, Ontario. He is a director of Harbourfront, which is where Skydome is located.

Molson’s 1998 Summary Compensation Table

SEAGRAM FAMILY HISTORY

INVESTMENT IN RECREATION AND TOURISM INFRASTRUCTURE
BENEFITS THE GREATER TORONTO AREA

TORONTO - Tennis Canada will soon see the development of a new tennis centre through an investment announced today under the Canada-Ontario Infrastructure Program.

This investment will make an important contribution to the Greater Toronto Area. The Honourable Maurizio Bevilacqua, Secretary of State (International Financial Institutions), the Honourable David Tsubouchi, Ontario Minister of Culture, Bob Moffatt, President and CEO, Tennis Canada, and Harold Milavsky, Chair, Tennis Canada announced the investment today. Norman Seagram, is Tennis Canada Vice-Chair

Tennis Canada will construct a national Tennis Centre at York University. The proposed new tennis centre will feature a 12,500-plus Centre Court stadium, a 5000 seat grandstand court, a 3000 seat court one, 12 outdoor courts and 8 indoor courts for year-round development and community programs, which will be made available to the surrounding area and neighbouring municipalities. The development of this world-class tennis facility will ensure that Toronto continues to host internationally celebrated events, such as the Tennis Masters Canada and the Rogers AT&T Cup. Construction will be complete by 2004.

The Government of Canada through Industry Canada and the Government of Ontario through SuperBuild will each contribute up to $5,000,000 to the project. The Government of Canada's investment will be made following the successful completion of an environmental assessment of the proposed project under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act.

"The Government of Canada's investment will ensure that our tennis community has first-rate infrastructure to support the training of our many talented Canadian athletes. This new centre will improve recreational infrastructure for the community, and will enhance Canada's ability to attract the highest calibre of international competitions," said Mr. Bevilacqua. "I am pleased to announce this important Canada-Ontario Infrastructure Program investment in Tennis Canada."

Alan N. Cohen, sports and entertainment executive, Purchase, N.Y., and Boca Raton, Fla., passed away on August 10, 2004.

Cohen was born in 1931 and graduated from the Law School in 1954. After serving in the Army, he joined Paul, Weiss, Rifkin, Wharton and Garrison in 1957 and became a partner in 1964. In 1970, Cohen joined the entertainment company then known as Warner Communications (now Time Warner) as executive v.p. and oversaw the company’s recorded music subsidiaries, including Atlantic Records, Electra and Warner Brothers records. During this time, he and several partners, including Warner CEO Steve Ross, purchased the New York franchise of a newly-formed professional soccer league. The team was known as the New York Cosmos, and, according to The New York Times, “it was to be the start of Mr. Cohen’s long and influential involvement in major sports ownership.” In 1974, Cohen became chairman and CEO of Madison Square Garden Corp., then a public corporation that owned the Knicks and the Rangers. In an interview with the Times, Cohen was asked if it were more important to win a championship or to earn profits for his shareholders. He replied that as a public company, his first priority was to his shareholders: “That’s the bottom line.” As a result, he was known for a time in the sports pages as “Bottom Line Cohen.” In 1978, Cohen and a group of investors purchased the New Jersey Nets NBA basketball franchise; he moved the team to its current facility in the Meadowlands. In 1983, Cohen sold his interest in the Nets and with his partners, Don Gaston and Paul Dupee, purchased the Boston Celtics. Under their ownership, the Celtics enjoyed a decade of great success. Led by Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish, the Celtics often reached the NBA Finals, winning the league championship in 1984 and 1986. Cohen was chairman of the NBA Board of Governors from 1985–87, and, along with Commissioner David Stern (who chairs the University’s Board of Trustees), Cohen was instrumental in the NBA’s moving to adopt a salary cap structure for its teams, pioneering its use. At the time of his death, Cohen was chairman of ANC Sports Enterprises, a leading provider of rotational and LED signage at sports facilities, and was co-chairman of Sportsco International, which owns the SkyDome in Toronto. Cohen was involved in charitable endeavors including service as a trustee or director of Independence House, a facility designed to rehabilitate youthful offenders; Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre; International Center for Photography; Haifa University; American Friends of Hebrew University; Educational Alliance; and the Graduate School of Management of The New School, as well as the College and the Law School, for which he served on the Boards of Visitors. Most recently, he was chairman of the Law School Annual Fund and a director of the American Friends of Tel Aviv University. Cohen received a John Jay Award in 1988 and was elected to the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. He is survived by his wife, Carol; and their daughter, Rebecca. He also is survived by his children from his earlier marriage to Joan Fields Cohen (deceased), Laurie Cohen Fenster and Gordon; and a sister, Beryl Zankel.

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HEY RALPH, SHOW US THE MONEY

Well our tubby Premier showed the other night that he listens and hears Albertans. Of course he has been deaf to the screams of pain of Martha and Henry for years, but 2005 is the provinces birthday, and being a magnanimous ruler, King Ralph has decided to throw a few crumbs to the “little people”. With Ralph it’s never a royal proclamation it’s always a thought, a suggestion, an idea, he will test the waters see the response and if the fishing looks good he will throw out the line, hook and sinker.

In his first of three “State of the Province” on TV, Alberta is looking more American all the time, he made three suggestions;

That for this year universities and colleges should send the bill for any tuition increases to the government.

That perhaps Alberta, being the richest province in Canada and having a record oil boom, should not have the lowest minimum wage in the country, and perhaps, if business likes the idea (oh please) he would increase the minimum wage from below $6 an hour to $7 an hour.

That maybe it would be a nice birthday present for the province if he proclaimed September 1 as an annual provincial holiday, to celebrate our centennial. That would give Albertans a four day long weekend on the years that it coincided with the Labour Day long weekend.

Oh the howling of the corporate bosses could be heard across the province. The fax machines were clicking faster then a pair of wind up joke teeth. The calculators were out and it was declared that a day off for Albertans would cost almost a billion dollars in lost surplus value (the business folks call this euphemistically ‘productivity’, we know it as ‘profit’) and then some for having to pay the wage slaves that would still be forced to work this holiday at time and a half wages.

Heck they didn’t have time to calculate the impact of the minimum wage increase on their profit; they just knew that Ralph was leaving their pockets a bit lighter.

While an increase to $7 an hour would finally end Alberta’s position as the Ebenezer Scrooge of Canada having the lowest minimum wage even behind the poorest province in Canada, Newfoundland, it still is not a Living Wage.

	General Minimum Wage Rate	Differential Minimum Wage Rate
British Columbia	$8.00	$6.00 for first 500 hours of work
Alberta	$5.90	na
Saskatchewan	$6.65	na
Manitoba	$7.00 ($7.25 April 1, 2005)	na
Ontario	$7.15($7.45 February 1, 2005)	$6.70 for students ($6.95 February 1, 2005) $6.20 for liquor servers($6.50 February 1, 2005)
Quebec	$7.45 ($7.60 May 1, 2005)	$6.70 for workers receiving gratuities ($6.85 May 1, 2005)
New Brunswick	$6.30	na
Nova Scotia	$6.50	$6.05 for inexperienced workers
Prince Edward Island	$6.80	na
Newfoundland & Labrador	$6.00 ($6.25 June 1, 2005)	na
Northwest Territories	$8.25	na
Yukon	$7.20	na
Nunavut	$8.50	na
Note: For workers in federal jurisdiction industries, the minimum wage is the general adult minimum wage rate of the province or territory where the work is performed.

Pretty embarrassing for a province that has declared massive surpluses every year for the last decade and has declared itself debt free! Albertans need a Living Wage not a minimum wage that barely catches up to Manitoba or Ontario, let alone B.C. all provinces that have massive deficits and debt. Day Care workers in Alberta working with ‘society’s most precious resource’, as the right wing likes to remind us, barely make over minimum wages. Workers in the service sector, those not in construction or other unionized jobs, make minimum wages and are expected to earn more from tips, again a tax on the consumer not the business.

But before the Red Flag of Socialism is raised at the Legislature, let’s look at what really would help Martha and Henry. In Alberta the Edmonton Social Planning Council has determined that to be able to live at the national poverty level using a basket of goods purchasing model that wages would have to be $10 an hour. That’s a Living Wage.

And further employers should have to pay full costs for health care, extended health benefits, and provide a transferable pension for all full and part time workers in Alberta. That’s the position the IWW, Industrial Workers of the World, has taken over the issue of what should be the base rate of pay for all workers, full time or part time, in Alberta.

And while Ralph is suddenly the new found friend of the working class, let us not forget that disabled Albertans have to live on $850 a month, in the form of AISH payments, any more income and it gets clawed back. They have not had a cost of living increase in ten years! In fact if they were able to work, at minimum wage in Alberta they would only make $860 a month!

During the November election, a meaner, nastier, Ralph Klein did his Ebenezer Scrooge imitation in stating that disabled protestors “looked able enough” to him and any increase they got would probably be spent on “booze and cigarettes”. Not satisfied with kicking off his election campaign by kicking the poor and disabled, he went north to boom town Grand Prairie and told the Chamber of Commerce, his kind of Albertans that “Severely normal Albertans” don’t care about AISH or the disabled. That was an election ‘Opp’s’ heard across the country. And even now his royal highness still has not done anything to address this glaring inequity.

The response from the labour movement has been skeptical, and it should be, Albertans of all walks of life should be demanding that Ralph show us the MONEY. It is after all our money, made by working people without which not a single drop of oil would be extracted, refined or exported. It is our low wages that have made the business folks rich, and allowed the government its surplus.

Ten years ago King Ralph declared a province wide wage freeze on public sector workers, and demanded roll backs to pay off the deficit we had not created. The deficit was the result of his governments poorly planned business investments, and the massive tax holiday they gave to the oil companies. And Albertans were lectured by Ralph then about tightening our belts and renovating our house. Now that he and his business friends have had a decade dining at the table of the Alberta boom, the least he could do is end his career as he began it, being the populist beer hall politician of the common volk.

An extra day off and a pay increase, now that’s worth celebrating along with the provinces birthday, maybe we could afford to buy some booze from the privatized liquor store around the corner, to toast with.

KLEIN TAKES FLAK OVER EXTRA DAY OFF
By DAWN WALTON
Globe and Mail, Friday, February 11, 2005 - Page A5

CALGARY -- These are heady days for the working stiff in Alberta.

Premier Ralph Klein, who long scoffed at the idea of raising Alberta's minimum wage of $5.90 an hour -- the lowest in the country -- suddenly announced this week the oil-rich province would raise it to $7.

And now, he's musing about declaring Sept. 1 a statutory holiday to celebrate the province's centennial. Heck, Mr. Klein told a befuddled business audience in Edmonton this week, this one-time-only day off could mean a five-day weekend if workers also take off Sept. 2, a Friday, and return after Labour Day Monday.

Corporate Alberta wants to know what happened to Mr. Pro-business: A Premier best known for cutting funding and downsizing jobs. Has Mr. Klein gone soft during his fourth and final term? Or is he continuing his well-honed practice of shooting from the lip?

"My main objection is he's creating a political benefit and imposing a private-sector cost," said Dan Kelly, western vice-president for the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, a lobby group for small and medium-sized companies.

There would be a $712-million loss in productivity for the day off, according to Mr. Kelly. He reached this conclusion by dividing the province's gross domestic product by the number of working days a year.

That doesn't include the potential additional wage cost of $133-million if Alberta businesses stayed open and pay time and a half for those stuck on the job, he pointed out. And the higher minimum wage could place undue burdens on small businesses, force some out of business and drive wage inflation in the province, he added.

"The political advantages are very clear," Mr. Kelly said. "Who wouldn't want an extra day off? Who wouldn't want lower wage earners to make a little bit more? But he shouldn't be making public policy at press conferences."

Mr. Klein has promised to consult with business before government approves a new statutory holiday, which was brought to cabinet by Community Development Minister Gary Mar, but clearly he's already feeling the heat.

"The danger of floating an idea is that you get a lot of static and that's what it is -- an idea and you shouldn't get static over an idea," Mr. Klein told reporters yesterday. "You shouldn't get static over a thought, and it's not even my thought. It's the minister's thought."

He said he's not so sure he even supports it.

"I don't get holidays," Mr. Klein said. "Really. I mean I work stat holidays and so I can't say that I'm personally in favour or not in favour."

But Dan MacLennan, president of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, who has butted heads with the Premier over the years during collective bargaining for his 60,000 members, has already written to Mr. Klein to lend the idea support.

"We're waiting to see if it happens," Mr. MacLennan said, ". . . He's surprised people before."

John Carpay, Alberta's head of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, has some better ideas for birthday presents to Albertans as the province gets ready to announce close to a $6-billion surplus for 2005.

"There's absolutely no reason why this government can't give back $4.8-billion it collected in personal income tax last year," Mr. Carpay said.

Or better still, it could abolish health-care premiums for all Albertans, he added.

An extra day off in September could cause confusion in Lloydminster, which straddles the Alberta-Saskatchewan boundary.

Already, some townsfolk, but not all, take Alberta's Family Day holiday in February. Different drinking ages in each province and anti-smoking laws also create problems in Lloydminster.

"That's just a norm for our city," Mayor Ken Baker said. "We're just used to it."

Saskatchewan Premier Lorne Calvert has been prodded about announcing a one-time-only holiday this year as his province also celebrates 100 years in Confederation.

"No, we're not looking seriously at having a day off," said government spokesman Jay Branch.

"But I'm thinking of moving there just so I can have a day off, too," he added, with a laugh.














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The End of Public ACCESS

Once upon a time Alberta had both a public funded radio station and TV station. The radio station CKUA was the oldest and only provincially owned public radio station in North America.
The TV station was ACCESS and is now the only private educational TV channel in Canada.

This week CHUM Ltd. purchased up all the shares of the Learning TV Network which includes ACCESS. Its part of its move into the Alberta media marketplace with its purchase of A-Channel in Edmonton and Calgary and its launch of a new FM radio station in Edmonton. This is the final act of fire sale piracy that sacrificed public access to media on the altar of privatization.

ACCESS was a crown corporation created to house both CKUA and an Educational TV network modeled on TVO(ntario) and the Knowledge Network in B.C. It used public access to cable to launch itself, and was a crown corporation.

The upper management of ACCESS were Tory good old boys owing their positions to who they knew , not what they knew. And it was this that led to the downfall for both CKUA and ACCESS. CKUA has survived as a community supported radio station. This week ACCESS was fully privatized.

This then is a tale of crony capitalism Alberta style.

CKUA The Day the Music Died
A lesson in HOW NOT TO PRIVATIZE

CKUA was surprisingly progressive in its music and news programming, even during the right wing Social Credit era, and through Peter Lougheed's Progressive Conservative ( PC) government era of the seventies and eighties. It broadcast KPFA news a decidedly left newservice and it covered Alberta politics with independent progressive news and features.
It was not just publically owned, but was opena nd remains open to community and public involvement.

I worked with CKUA in the early 1970's setting up its first ever Teen Youth radio show. Youth Radio Production was a cooperative of high school students programming on CKUA every Saturday for 1/2 hour reporting on activism in the community. We were all volunteers who had created radio shows in our High Schools using the school intercom system, those radio shows still exist in Edmonton High Schools. Several of the high school radio show programmers went on to work at making CJSR at the U of A a viable community station.

Like the CBC, CKUA was funded by taxpayers, but was not beholden to the government. For years as an educational radio station it did function as the first distance education program for Alberta Education, and it ran Question Period from the Legislature. During the nineties with the privatization putsch of the Klein government, Question Period was deemed too 'expensive' to support on CKUA and was canceled by the government. So much for democracy in Alberta.

Using a phony debt and deficit crisis to push to reform the state in the 1990's the Alberta Tories under Ralph Klein became Republican Lite. The Alberta Government turned to the extreme right, under the influence of the Reagan Republicans, Sir Roger Davies of New Zealand, the Thatcher Government in England, and with the support of right wing think tanks like the Fraser Institute in Canada and the Cato Institute in the US.

The debt and deficit hysteria was international and allowed right wing parties in power around the world to embrace "change" and propose "radical new ideas" on society and the governments they ruled. Of course there was nothing new in their ideas, it was the same old same old tired mantra of the Chicago School of Economics (Milton Friedman) and their Austrian School (Ludwig von Mises) predecessors; it was the cry of the lazzie faire; Let the Market rule- privatize, privatize, privatize.

In Alberta the so called deficit was temporary, and was a direct result of the government giving a royalty holiday to the giant oil corporations that dominate the provinces economy. It used the economic down turn affecting North America between 1993-1995 to impose wage and benefit cuts on public sector workers as well as downsizing and outsourcing, and began its campaign to sell off public assets and to privatize everything.

As Ralph Klein likes to say; "We want to get the government OUT of business." or "The government has no business being in business", sheer intellectual brilliance out of our infamous Teflon populist Premier. It's a beer hall catchphrase that sums up the neoliberal agenda of privatizing everything.

And that’s what the Klein government proceeded to do. And do it abysmally. As with the privatization of the Liquor Control Board in Alberta (ALCB), everything was put on the block and sold at fire sale prices. CKUA and ACCESS were no exception. Throughout this process of privatization, the same crony capitalism that Russia has suffered from was prevalent in Alberta too. Which is what happens when a One Party State embraces neoliberalism, it moves from state-capitalism to the state funding of capitalism.

In 1994, Alberta's Minister of Municipal Affairs, Steve West, known as the dark lord of privatization, made sure everything in his pervue was for sale. He oversaw the privatization of the ALCB, as well as the Public Works department which was responsible for Highway Construction and Maintenance in Alberta.

He was Kleins unfailing hatchetman. Like Klein, West made no bones that the government should not be in the the business of broadcasting. And he told CKUA and ACCESS to come up with a plan to run independent of government funding. He gave them a month!

Already in the wings CHUM created the Canadian Learning Television and got a broadcast licence with the support of the Alberta government which paid CLT $8 million annually for three years. It sold CLT, ACCESS TV's Edmonton facilities, including library material and the broadcasting and duplicating rights to those materials for $1.

Ever the hatchetman West fired CKUA's President, Don Thomas and its GM Jackie Rollans. He replaced them with a hand picked foundation board. The foundation board was created within the ACCESS coporation to run CKUA.

"Gail Hinchliffe, a Calgary-based property developer with strong Conservative party ties, served as the chair of ACCESS from 1991 and (simultaneously) as the CEO of CKUA from October 1994." Within three years Hinchliffe and her cronies had spent millions of dollars on themselves leaving the station on the verge of bankruptcy.

As the Auditor General would later report on the CKUA debacle; " Further, at times during the period from February 1994 to April 1997, some directors of the Foundation were also directors of ACCESS."

In March 1997 she and her board cried bankruptcy and pulled the plug on the station, their political agenda was clear, they had never intended to make CKUA a viable operation, they were there to plunder it and shut it down.

As Larry Pratt noted in his article in Alberta Views in 1998:

"A lawyer friend of mine says the fiasco surrounding last spring's closure and reopening of CKUA radio station made her long for a return to the days when political leaders who had betrayed the public trust would be dragged out to a city square and locked in stocks for a few days of self-reflection, preferably in February.

What really outraged her was less the revelations about financial mismanagement or the incompetence of CKUA's board than it was the total failure of anyone - board, management, government - to take any responsibility for the mess. How is it possible that no one was held accountable for the million dollars that the former directors of CKUA paid themselves and their own companies out of the station's scarce funds from 1994 to 1997, the period after it was privatized by the Klein government, in spite of an explicit ban on any remuneration for the board members?"

The CKUA Foundation board under CEO Gail Hinchliffe were predominately from Calgary, and like other privateers benefiting from this provinces crony capitalism, she was part of the Calgary Tory network. While she issued layoff notices to all the staff and after she shut down the station she still paid herself a salary.

SEE magazine reported at the time that "Hinchliffe had dual roles as board chair and CEO, and board member Larry Clausen's Calgary company, Communications Inc., handled the station's marketing contract. Revenue Canada documents showed three of the station's top executives shared some $201,000 in earnings in 1995."

Liberal MLA Lauri Blakeman revealed that " former board chair Gail Hinchliffe's company received $388,345 between Aug. 1994 and April 1997; former board member Larry Clausen's firm received $245,345 from March 1995 - March 1997; former board member and station accountant Gerry Luciani's company was paid $120,190 from July 1995 - May, 1997; and former board member Rick Baker's company, on contract to develop Friends of CKUA chapters across the province, earned $48,150 from March 1995 - Aug. 1996."

This crony capitalism is rampant in the Klein Government that rules Alberta. Under Klein's leadership the PC's became the Party of Calgary with links to the National Citizens Coalition (which moved its headquarters to Calgary), the Federal Conservative Party (which was formerly the Reform/Alliance party based in Calgary), the right wing think-tank the Fraser Institute, lobbyists for the Charter School movment, and the right wing think tank in the Political Science department of University of Calgary.

Under the leadership of both Peter Lougheed and Don Getty the PC's ruling Alberta viewed Calgary as the headquarters for corporations in Alberta and Edmonton, the provincial capital, as headquarters of the government. Under Klein the putsch to privatize the government was also an attempt to radically restructure power in Alberta, moving it from the capitol city to the corporate environs of Calgary. Even if it meant that ALCB buildings and inventory were sold off at below cost and CKUA and Access were sold off for $10 and $1 each!

The unionized staff that was all laid off called an emergency meeting and decided to shut down the station at midnight. This was a tactic never before used by media facing state intervention in their radio or TV stations. Around the world radio and TV stations have been occupied and continued broadcasting. In hindsight the tactic was brilliant. It mobilized Albertans in outrage and it was done in the middle of the provincial election!

Hinchliffe talked about running a scab radio station with volunteer announcers, but that was for naught, their were public pickets across the province at every CKUA station, and no one was going to cross the line.

As CKUA GM Ken Reagan told the CRTC last November :

"In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, when CKUA was taken off the air in 1997, what occurred was, indeed, unprecedented and, some might say, astounding. The citizenry of one of Canada's most politically conservative provinces rose up to save their community radio service. Something even more remarkable when you consider that essential services like health and education were also being cut significantly at that time. But people drew a line in the sand over CKUA radio and it begs the question: why? To be honest, I'm not sure that I have an answer. Except to surmise that over its 77-year history, CKUA has become such an integral part of people's lives in Alberta and the life of its community that, for those people who love it, losing it is not an option. And I'm not trying to hyperbolize or be melodramatic, but the love the people have for CKUA is deep and genuine."

Mass protests and candle light vigils were held and within a month a new board was created which removed the privateers and created a viable non-profit public station, which is still running the station today.

Unfortunately one of things CKUA sacrificed in its rebirth was news and critical news features. In order to be a PBS like public access radio station with telethons, it has spent several years being more music than substance.

The Klein government did nothing to change its "privatization is the cure for everything ideology". And it still engages in crony capitalism funding CHUM to run ACCESS. One of the ideological reasons given by the right wing for privatizing the State is that crown corporations are a monopoly, with no competition.

Of course ACCESS was a monopoly it was the only educational station in the province. There are plenty of private broadcasters in Alberta but none who provide this service because it is 'not profitable'. In fact without Alberta Education and other provincial governments funneling taxpayers money into ACCESS it would not be a viable private Educational TV station. And it's still a monopoly, albeit a private one!

While the public rallied for CKUA lost in the dust of the Klein Revolution in Alberta was the effects of the privatization of ACCESS. It never went off the air, it just quietly shifted from being owned by Albertans to being owned by CITY-TV/CHUM and funded by Albertans. It is another example of the public purse being used for private profit.

The most recent P3-Public Private Partnership- endeavor of the government is to fund the private construction of a ring road around Edmonton. The reason to contract out this service, paying the contractor $34 million a year for 30 years, says Infrastructure Minister Lyle Oberg its because the province doesn't own any road construction equipment. Nope they sold that off at fire sales prices of 25 cents on the dollar to the private highway construction contractors back at the same time they sold off CKUA, ACCESS and the ALCB.

Appendix to this Article

CKUA History of a privatization putsch

ACCESS- The Privatization of Educational TV in Alberta

Also See Wild West Buy Out, February 20, 2005









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Alberta

CKUA-History

CKUA History of a privatization putsch

"It began in 1927 with a dream: to take the University to the people via the new medium of radio. With a couple of the University of Alberta’s engineering students, 2 windmill towers, some old iron poles and a little creative book-keeping, a $700 grant was transformed into Canada’s first public broadcaster. The CKUA Radio Network signed on November 21st, 1927, with a 500-watt signal.

On May 23rd, 1929, the 1st Canadian school broadcast was made from CKUA, fulfilling the original goal set 2 years prior, and starting a tradition of excellence in distance education that continues today through CKUA’s relationship with Athabasca University. "CKUA History

"On September 29, 1941, CKUA increased power to 1,000 watts from a new transmitter site. In September 1944, a radio program committee of the university took over responsibility for CKUA from the Department of Extension. Alberta Government Telephones began operating CKUA on May 1, 1945, with the university still programming the station for three hours a day, Monday through Friday. The university still holds the station's license. On July 28, 1945, CKUA moved from the university campus to the Provincial Government Building in downtown Edmonton. A 1947 listing shows CKUA operating on 580 kHz with 1,000 watts. The station is a CBC Trans-Canada affiliate and is non-commercial. Listed start date is November 1, 1927. CKUA is operated by Alberta Government Telephones. Studios are on the top floor of the Provincial Building, transmitter: R. R. 1 Calgary Trail, south of Edmonton. CKUA is on the air from 7 a.m. to 12 a.m. weekdays, 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sundays.

Alberta Government Telephones started CKUA-FM on 98.1 MHz with 250 watts on June 28, 1948. The "UA" in the call letters: University of Alberta. In 1954, CKUA-FM's power is listed at 352 watts.

On March 9, 1960, CKUA increased power to 10,000 watts-U DA-2, using three 282 foot towers at 53-20-34 113-27-27. The original CKUA antenna on the university campus was dismantled in 1966.


On April 1, 1974, The Government of Alberta transferred operation of CKUA from the University of Alberta to The Alberta Educational Communications Authority (ACCESS), a Crown Corporation. (Access was established in October 1973).

A 1976 engineering brief proposes CKUA operate with 50,000 watts full-time.

THE PRIVATIZATION PUTSCH

In 1995, the CRTC approved the purchase of the radio division of the Alberta Educational Communications Corp. (CKUA-AM, CKUA-FM and its 15 rebroadcasters) by CKUA Radio Foundation for ten dollars. The foundation will receive provincial grants for three years and can sell up to 504 minutes of restricted advertising per week. CKUA becomes an independent foundation. ACCESS-TV was purchased by CHUM Limited.

At midnight, March 22, 1997, CKUA left the air due to financial troubles. On April 25, 1997, CKUA began broadcasting once again."

From the The Bill Dulmage Radio & Television Archive


CKUA—An exercise in education
By Geoff McMaster

"On March 20, 1997, CKUA went off the air; it seemed then for good. Not even the station's announcers knew what was coming until that afternoon. Gathered at the home of announcer Lee Onisko to commiserate, they phoned in suggestions for the final program of the night, which finished appropriately with The Band's The Last Waltz.

At midnight, without explanation to the listening audience, host Chris Martin closed with, "We'll be back, after this," and one of Alberta's most valued cultural institutions was reduced to silence, at least temporarily.

But what Walters discovered in writing her comprehensive account of the station since its humble beginnings at the University of Alberta was there were any number of times when CKUA could have disappeared from the airwaves were it not for the fighting spirit of its supporters. It's just that the drive to bring the radio station back in 1997 threw into stark relief the passion Albertans have for the station. They weren't about to let something so valuable disappear because of financial bungling by an incompetent board of governors.

As host announcer Dave Ward said of the Touch the Transmitter fundraising tour of the province: "This isn't a radio station; this is a religion. The way people reacted to what happened was more like what they would do if a church burned down."


CKUA Uses the Internet during its Crisis
On The Web By Richard Cairney

"The public broadcaster's website is a newborn - it was launched after the station was pulled off the airwaves in late March.

While the station was off the air, the Internet was employed as a tool to fight for CKUA's revival (that site was built for the Save Alberta Public Radio Society, linked to the CKUA site). Strategies were hatched, beefs were aired and fund raising conducted.

Now that the station is back on the air, it's using the Internet as a newsstand and a new medium, offering surfers around the world broadcasts in RealAudio."

NEWS FRONT
By Richard Cairney
SEE Magazine Copyright © 1997. All Rights Reserved.

Much has happened in the two weeks since the CKUA Radio Foundation closed the station and laid off 50 employees, but a revival still appears to be a distant hope. Former staffers continue to call for the resignation of foundation board chair and station chief executive officer Gail Hinchliffe, who vehemently refuses to step down.


"I'm not going anywhere," Hinchliffe said from her Calgary home Tuesday.

Hinchliffe said she and other board members have been "lightning rods" in a storm of controversy that erupted March 21 when, citing imminent bankruptcy, they shut down the station without notice.

Angry listeners and supporters, along with bitter ex-employees, called for an independent financial audit of the station's books - a request that has been granted. Premier Ralph Klein has asked auditor general Peter Valentine to audit the foundation's books to ensure the board has lived up to terms of a 1994 agreement. Under that deal, the province handed over $4.7 million and the station - with $800,000 in assets - to an appointed board. The funding was to ease the transition from Crown corporation to non-profit public broadcaster.

Hinchliffe was to meet with municipal affairs minister Iris Evans Wednesday and Evans was scheduled to meet with former CKUA staffers Thursday. Staffers hope Evans can convince Hinchliffe to step aside.

The former employees are suspicious of Hinchliffe's dual roles as board chair and CEO, wary of the fact that board member Larry Clausen's Calgary company, Communications Inc., handled the station's marketing contract and are upset by Revenue Canada documents showing three of the station's top executives shared some $201,000 in earnings in 1995. They want an elected board to take over the station. And they want Hinchliffe out of the picture completely.

But she refuses to go.

"This isn't the Media Club, it is a highly regulated industry," Hinchliffe told SEE. "You can't sit around the rumpus room and decide who is and isn't going to be on the board."

Hinchliffe said the foundation has secured long-term financial commitments to get the station up and running but wouldn't say who is providing financial support.

Musician Tommy Banks is skeptical of the claim. He and Folk Festival producer Terry Wickham are part of a group that tried last week to broker a deal. Banks said talks are ongoing. The group wants to see the current board dissolve and an interim board take over. That board would get the station up and running and set new bylaws governing board membership to allow broad-based representation.

And, he added, Hinchliffe would be a valuable member of the interim group.

"It would be a terrible mistake for the interim board not to include Gail Hinchliffe. She knows where the ketchup is," Banks explained.

A new board without current members - particularly someone with Hinchliffe's knowledge of the station, "would be like a bunch of people walking into a completely dark room that has a hot stove in the middle of it. You need someone to say 'hey, be careful, there's a hot stove over there.'"

Broadcaster David Ward said he's surprised Hinchliffe hasn't stepped down to make way for an interim board.

"She hasn't cracked and I am, in a warped way, impressed," he said.

Katherine Hoy, spokesperson for former staffers and the Save Alberta Public Radio Society, said it would be difficult for ex-employees to participate in any venture Hinchliffe is involved in.

"She has got to step down as CEO and chair. She could be on the interim board," Hoy conceded. "But she would be there just to tell them where the ketchup is."

There seems to be no love lost between the CEO and her former employees. Although Hinchliffe admitted she made a mistake last week by publicly considering the use of volunteer deejays, she said current on-air personalities are valuable but not indispensable.

Having former staffers return if the station goes back on air "would certainly be the ideal," Hinchliffe said.

"But on the other hand, CKUA has been broadcasting for 70 years and not with the same people."

That may be true but the public appears to be siding with CKUA staffers. Rallies across the province - in Edmonton, Calgary, Red Deer, Medicine Hat and Lethbridge - have raised more than $15,000 in donations for the Save Alberta Public Radio Society. In all, the society has raised pledges for more than $90,000 in donations. Money will be used to battle for control of the station.

Hinchliffe feels the support is probably too little, too late. When CKUA first left the government nest it was treated poorly by the communities it served, she said. Arts groups resented the station, fearing it would compete for much-needed corporate sponsorships, and listeners were complacent in supporting the station financially.

"I wish there was that level of enthusiasm and willingness to support us before," she said, of the donations made to former staffers.

The society's campaign is the only public work being done to save the station and it is the station, not only personalities, that donors are supporting, she said. She pointed out that the $8,500 raised at the farmers' market in Old Strathcona Saturday afternoon wouldn't cover more than one day's costs to keep the station running.

"I don't see this as support for one camp or another."

Former CKUA staffers see it as support for broadcasters and the station itself; the two are inextricably linked. And the employees feel they owe it to listeners and to themselves to keep fighting to get the station back on the air.

Strong emotional support shown during rallies is overwhelming, said deejay Bill Coull.

"People really hurt. I have had people weeping in my arms, literally and figuratively," he said.

Coull noted staffers are running into financial concerns and admits "there will be attrition."

But most staffers are "absolutely resolute" and will keep working to rally support to return quality programming to the airwaves.

"This is a very strong personal thing," Coull said.
"You hit a person in their soul when you take away their job but you take away their heart and soul when you take away a CKUA job."



CKUA goes back on the air with a referendum for listeners
FFWD Weekly Copyright © 1997. All Rights Reserved.

"After being pulled off the air more than a month ago, CKUA Radio will be back on Friday, April 25 at 6 p.m.

Staff from the station, which was closed by its former board to prevent bankruptcy, will return to their jobs on a volunteer basis for one month. The employees are members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers' local 348.

A volunteer interim board took over the CKUA Radio Foundation last week, firing former board chair and station CEO Gail Hinchliffe. The board is working to revive corporate sponsorships and is aiming to run the station on an annual budget of $1.4 million, compared to a $2.8-million budget prior to the station's closure on March 21.

Edmonton lawyer Bud Steen, chairman of the new board, says the station has approximately $100,000 in the bank and a provincewide fund-raising campaign will begin May 2. Referring to the campaign as "a referendum," Steen says the new board is operating on a plan in which two-thirds of the funding will come from listeners."

Conflict of Interest Alleged In CKUA Affair

September 22, 1997

The preliminary findings of a forensic audit into the business dealings of Edmonton's taxpayer-owned radio network CKUA have resulted in allegations of conflict of interest, breach of duty and controversial business decisions. The report recommends that the provincial government and the CKUA Radio Foundation, which took over the station, sue the former directors for breach of fiduciary responsibilities.

However, Iris Evans, the minister responsible for CKUA, says the province will not launch a civil suit, is not planning to give the station more money, and is not requesting a criminal investigation. It has, however, asked investigators Deloitte & Touche to send a letter to the federal superintendent of bankruptcy regarding a possible contravention of the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act by Gail Hinchliffe, the political appointee who ran the station between August, 1994 and April, 1997.

Alberta Auditor General Report on the Failure of CKUA Privatization

In August 1994, ACCESS transferred the assets and operations of CKUA Radio to a privately operated foundation called the CKUA Radio Foundation (the Foundation). The transfer was pursuant to an Asset Purchase and Sale Agreement (Sale Agreement) between ACCESS and the Foundation. The Sale Agreement provided for the Foundation to receive grants totaling $4.725 million over a three-year period to be used in accordance with an approved business plan (Business Plan) to transform CKUA Radio into a financially self-sustaining public broadcaster.
In March 1997, however, CKUA Radio ceased broadcasting, citing financial difficulties. In the same month, the Minister of Municipal Affairs asked the Auditor General to investigate and report on the financial affairs and other matters related to the difficulties experienced by the Foundation. As I am not the auditor of the Foundation, the investigation was performed under authority contained in the Sale Agreement.
In simple terms, CKUA Radio ceased broadcasting in March 1997 because it was running out of money. The Foundation’s revenues had been consistently less than expected, and its expenditures were higher than budgeted for in the Business Plan. What is more revealing, however, is how this happened and why ACCESS and the Department of Municipal Affairs were largely unaware of the Foundation’s difficulties until they became critical.
The Business Plan, which was part of the Sale Agreement, provided a strategy by which the Foundation was supposed to progress from an operation dependent on government funding, to a financially viable self-sustaining operation. It contained budgets for revenues and expenditures, supported by plans containing operational objectives and strategies, a management structure and staffing complements. It is unclear, however, whether the revenue targets contained in the Business Plan were realistic. As events transpired, actual revenues fell far short of those targets. Unfortunately, the Foundation’s efforts to address these revenue shortfalls were largely unsuccessful, and eventually, its resources were so depleted that cessation of operations was inevitable.
ACCESS, and later the Department of Municipal Affairs (which assumed ACCESS’s rights and obligations under the Sale Agreement when ACCESS was wound-up in July 1996), did little to help the situation. In part, this was probably because both lacked in-depth knowledge of the Foundation’s situation. This, in turn, was because the accountability information obtained from the Foundation since August 1994 had been minimal.
Even if ACCESS or the Department had pressed the Foundation for financial and other operating information, it is doubtful if it could have been provided. This was because the Foundation’s financial records were generally poor and not conducive to the provision of timely financial information. This meant that much of the information the Foundation’s Board and management would have needed to manage the Foundation’s affairs effectively, was usually unavailable or late. The audited financial statements for the first thirteen months to August 31, 1995 were not presented to the Board until February 18, 1997. Monthly operating statements were not produced until June 1996, and even then, were of limited value because financial budgets were not integrated into an overall operational plan.
In conclusion, I believe that failure to measure and report results promptly, to match results against a comprehensive plan, and to take corrective action when needed, severely limited the Foundation’s ability to administer its affairs successfully. I believe also that some of the Foundation’s problems could have been avoided, or at least mitigated, by a proper governance structure with appropriate separation of duties between the Board and management. My advice to the Foundation’s new Board of Directors is to develop realistic revenue targets for the future, and to determine whether CKUA Radio can operate within the necessary cost constraints.
The failure of the Foundation to plan properly and to provide evidence of results had implications for ACCESS, which provided $4.725 million in cash and $1.125 million in capital assets to the Foundation. In such circumstances, even though the Sale Agreement was virtually silent on the need to provide accountability information, ACCESS (and later the Department) should have required the Foundation to provide frequent accountability reports. As a minimum, such reports should have contained the information needed to enable ACCESS to monitor the Foundation’s progress towards the goals set out in the Business Plan.
I acknowledge that, as required by an April 1995 amendment to the Sale Agreement, the Foundation sent ACCESS a report in October 1995 on the status and viability of the Foundation’s operations. The report, however, was superficial and unsupported. Furthermore, the report was received by ACCESS six months after it had paid the Foundation the final $2.025 million of grant monies to cover the second and third years of the funding period. In my view, the failure of ACCESS to require the Foundation to be properly accountable for the ongoing performance of the goals and objectives contained in the Business Plan allowed a bad situation to become critical, and Provincial funding to be wasted.
Another situation that may also have contributed to a lack of adequate accountability was the Foundation’s inappropriate governance structure. There was no clear separation of responsibilities between the Foundation’s Board and management, even though such separation was required by the Business Plan. Further, at times during the period from February 1994 to April 1997, some directors of the Foundation were also directors of ACCESS. In my view, this dual role created conflicts of interest during their involvement in decisions relating to the sale and subsequent operation of CKUA Radio.