Enough with the pro sports handouts
Dave Perkins
Thestar.com

Don't envy Peter Fonseca his job in the coming stuttering economy. As Ontario's tourism minister, he juggles the reeling U.S. dollar, $4-a-gallon gas down below and necessity to run ads reminding the locals to be nice to visitors. When you need to tell people that, you're in tough long before the first $9.50 glass of beer is sold to a disbelieving tourist.
The gang at Queen's Park has commissioned yet another tourism study, this time naming Greg Sorbara chair of the Ontario Tourism Competitiveness Study and Action Plan. Fonseca couldn't say how much the study would cost or exactly who would pay for it. We can guess.
Anyway, a particular old hobby horse here has been the willingness of our governments to subsidize professional sports with taxpayer funds and let's ride it again: Fonseca's ministry is open about its grants to events, some of extremely dubious value (it says here), owned or administered by wealthy corporations and individuals. There's a nearby chart that indicates, for instance, $150,000 a year and $550,000 in the past four years granted to the Rogers Cup tennis toona-mint for "marketing" purposes. This is Rogers as in Ted Rogers, the laughing billionaire who loves to publicly rub everyone's nose in the fact that he scooped the SkyDome, for which taxpayers covered the majority of the $620 million cost, for $25 million.
Do we feel good about this, knowing Uncle Ted's tennis division nuzzles up for a small taste every year?
Fonseca indicated that Ted and Larry Tanenbaum will be eligible to apply for "marketing" funds when they bring in the Buffalo Bills. Great. So we can put our tax dollars into helping kill off the CFL.
We learned recently about the now-gone auto race at the CNE sucking up $850,000 of our money over the years. How about the Tim Hortons Brier getting $125,000, $50,000 to Telus for golf's Skins Game, or the Grey Cup, which reaped a sizeable profit this year for Messrs. Cynamon and Sokolowski, getting $200,000?
It's happening in a province whose biggest city, this one, required a $160,000 donation from MasterCard, run by an American, to keep 41 public skating rinks open in December. (Those 41 rinks are closed now; it would have cost a reported $266,000 to keep them open and, yes, the province is one pocket and the city is another, but didn't all money come out of our pocket in the first place?)
All these funds come out of the tourism ministry's TEMPP fund, which stands for Tourism Event Marketing Partnership Program.
"Our ministry looks at all partnerships and how they are able to impact our economy in terms of tourism," said Fonseca, once a marathon runner of note. "Something like a judo tournament in my riding that attracted over 800 participants, many from all parts of the world. So that was great."
Maybe so. And doubtless the event needed the handout the way some enterprises don't.
"We'll also look at other partnerships, at things like the Indy, as well as with professional sports and amateur sports. What we are there to do is to really be the glue and the strategic partner to help develop and invest in a product that will attract tourists with it," Fonseca said.
If his ministry was serious, it would cease handouts to pro sports, which don't need them, and join the health people in supporting something like the 2015 Pan Am Games bid, which might draw a few tourists, in a pre-Olympic year, and also would leave behind a legacy of badly needed sports facilities.
Long term, giving kids places to play is a better idea here than spending $21 million on surveillance cameras to identify the swarmers on the TTC.

Overview of Ontario's Tourism Event Marketing Partnership Program funding for major sporting events:
Rogers Cup tennis
2004-05: $50,000
2005-06: $200,000
2006-07: $150,000
2007-08: $150,000
Canadian PGA Champ.
2004-05: $15,000
2005-06: $8,000
Grey Cup
2004-05: $200,000
2007-08: $200,000
Tim Hortons Brier
2006-07: $125,000
Telus Skins golf
2007-08: $50,000
x-Toronto Grand Prix
2006-07: $333,000
x-Grand Prix was allotted a total of $850,000 from 2003 to 2007.

Excellence in the game of Sorry

Cheers, boos greet Oilers' apology: Full-page ad seen either as much-needed, a waste of money or on the wrong track

Andrea Sands
The Edmonton Journal

EDMONTON - A letter from Edmonton Oilers hockey club president Patrick LaForge apologizing for the team's dreadful season has drawn both condemnation and praise from fans.
In a full-page advertisement in Saturday's Journal, LaForge detailed a string of obstacles, including injuries and extended road trips, that hampered the Oilers' performance on the heels of last year's remarkable Stanley Cup run.
"Every Oilers employee and player wants you to know they share your frustration about our results this past year," LaForge wrote in a letter headlined Proud to be in Oil Country.
The letter went on to defend Edmonton as a great place to live, work and play NHL hockey, despite winters that call for "a warm coat and snow tires."
LaForge's letter prompted varied responses from fans posting comments on an Oilers website message board Saturday.
"Should have saved the money," one wrote. "There is no excuse for this past season."
"Good for LaForge and the Oilers," said another writer. "It's about time that they stood up to challenge the fantasies and bad rumours out there."
Another fan questioned the motivation behind the letter.
"He is doing damage control because the Oilers as an organization feel that they blew it this past year."
In an interview on Saturday, LaForge told The Journal the letter is an annual report to the fans and the community.
"We wanted to say we're all in the same place about the team and we wish we were in the playoffs, but there were circumstances that combined to deal us a bad hand," he said. "Of course, we all feel bad about that and we're doing everything we can to get it fixed right now."
Edmonton has been heavily criticized in the media for not being attractive to players, especially since the surprise defection of star defenceman Chris Pronger, who left last year for sunny Anaheim, Calif.
Another blow to Edmonton came in a Hockey News poll of 283 NHL players, which reported Buffalo, then Edmonton, were the places NHL players would least like to be traded among the league's 30 teams.
Edmonton can be a tough place to play hockey, LaForge said. Hockey passions run deep here, and players are scrutinized by knowledgeable fans with high expectations.
"We feel very proud to be in Edmonton and we think it's a great city. We've won five Stanley Cups here and it's our intention to win more," he said.
"Some writers -- from the East and from Edmonton -- have positioned it as somehow a place that's not worthy of NHL players or NHL teams, and we just think people have got that so wrong it's unbelievable."
Edmonton-based player agent Ritch Winter said LaForge and the Oilers need to stop being defensive about Edmonton's climate and start finding ways to make the city more attractive to free-agent players.
"It is a cold and dreary wasteland in the wintertime," Winter said.
"Until we're able to communicate effectively to (players) the intangible benefits of living in Edmonton and playing hockey in Edmonton -- which are great -- our chances of competing in the National Hockey League at the level the fans would like to see this team compete will be negatively affected."
Greg Duquette, a doctoral student in sport management at the University of Alberta, said fans here need to develop a thicker skin to fend off what LaForge called "drive-by criticism."
"I disagree that it is harder to play hockey in Edmonton than in Vancouver or Montreal," Duquette said. "The difference is that residents of those communities are less likely to see the career choices of a few professional athletes as a reflection on the attractiveness of their community."
Longtime season-ticket holder Doug Spaner suggested LaForge should have sent his letter to newspapers across the country instead of within Edmonton.
It didn't tell Oilers fans anything they don't already know, Spaner said in an interview.
"It should be addressed to other hockey players who are going to think twice about signing here," said the 50-year-old psychiatrist.
This season was discouraging for fans, but they won't abandon their beloved Oilers, Spaner said. "If I wasn't deterred by the 1990s, I'm not going to be deterred by one bad season," he laughed.
Cal Nichols, chairman of the Edmonton Oilers ownership group, said team general manager Kevin Lowe has the tools and budget to build a competitive team for next season.
"This is where superior coaching, scouting and managing has to enter into it. ... It's how you manage your assets, because we're all on kind of an equal, level playing field," Nichols said, referring to the NHL salary cap.
If plans for a new downtown arena go ahead, it could help Oilers managers attract star talent and free agents, Nichols added.
Mayor Stephen Mandel is expected to unveil a committee this week that will study the idea of replacing Rexall Place with a $400-million building in the city's core.

Who dat say dey gonna move dem Saints?

Louisiana, Saints drop exit clauses
Associated Press

BATON ROUGE, La. — The New Orleans Saints have come to an agreement with state officials that will keep the team in Louisiana through the 2010 season.
Both sides agreed to toss out contract exit clauses that would have let the NFL team leave the state within the next four years.
"For the foreseeable future, Louisiana's team will keep marching to victory right here," Gov. Kathleen Blanco said at the Governor's Mansion on Monday, announcing the latest developments in ongoing negotiations to keep the Saints in New Orleans.
The contract had allowed the Saints to opt out of its current deal with the state by repaying about $70 million the state has provided in inducements to the team. But the Saints will drop that termination clause, and the state will eliminate its ability to opt out of the contract.
Both sides agreed to continue negotiating on a long-term agreement that could keep the Saints in New Orleans beyond the current contract.
Saints owner Tom Benson is "committed over the next four years to get a long-term deal done here and to stay here forever," said team spokesman Greg Bensel.
The current $186.5 million contract with the Saints was negotiated in 2001 by former Gov. Mike Foster's administration and involves making annual payments to the team on top of other subsidies through 2010.
Those state payments will continue. Blanco said she didn't agree to give the Saints any more money — but ongoing upgrades to the Saints' home stadium, the New Orleans Superdome, will continue.
Hurricane Katrina caused extensive damage to the Superdome in 2005. The state repaired the domed stadium and invested another $185 million into improvements and upgrades long sought by Benson.
Benson was in Phoenix on Monday for the NFL owners' meeting and was not at the Governor's Mansion for the announcement of the contract changes.