The Vancouver Canucks could soon have a new West Coast rival a few clicks south of the border from Rogers Arena.
This week Seattle city council approved a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Oak View Group to revamp Seattle’s Key Arena, which first broke ground back in 1960. The project is worth an estimated US$600 million. According to the MOU, it would “provide a world-class civic arena to attract and present music, entertainment and sports events, potentially including National Basketball Association [NBA] and National Hockey League [NHL] events to Seattle and the region.”
Oak View is a Los Angeles-based planning and development company that runs what it calls the Arena Alliance, which oversees streamlining between dozens of stadiums in North America, including Madison Square Garden and the Dallas American Airlines Centre.
The NHL is now expected to make a franchise announcement within a few months regarding Seattle. The announcement could involve adding or relocating an NHL team, and Oak View has an ambitious timeline, hoping to complete the arena redevelopment by 2020.
In a response to Business in Vancouver regarding the Key Arena project, Jeff Stipec, chief operating officer for Canucks Sports & Entertainment, said an NHL franchise in Seattle would be good for professional hockey on the West Coast.
“A geographic rival offers obvious benefits for our fans and would help grow the game in the Pacific Northwest.”
Peter Tingling, an associate dean at Simon Fraser University’s Beedie School of Business who has researched the business of professional sports, said the most obvious upside of a nearby NHL franchise for Vancouver would be the “healthy competition” it would generate.
“It’s going to create an impetus to improve the quality of product here in Vancouver,” he said. “The other thing is people like winning teams, so that will definitely have to be taken into account.”
Tingling said he could see a situation where the Seattle NHL franchise markets to the upscale Vancouver crowd, focusing on weekend games where Vancouverites could drive down to the city, watch a game and stay the night in a hotel while shopping and sightseeing in Seattle. However, he noted that “crossing the border is still non-trivial. People of certain ethnic minorities still have a tough time, and if you’re trying to get to a certain place for a certain time, that’s a big issue.”
The National Football League’s (NFL) Seattle Seahawks have strong fan support in B.C. A recent Insights West poll found that one in five B.C. residents describes himself or herself as a Seahawks fan.
Lynne Jarrett, vice-president at large for the Canadian Sea Hawkers Booster Club, a registered non-profit organization and official chapter of the NFL franchise, said approximately 8,000 Canadians have season’s tickets for Seahawks games. She said they don’t usually encounter logistical issues when travelling from Vancouver to Seahawks home games. Fans of Major League Soccer’s Seattle Sounders also regularly make trips up to BC Place to watch their team play the Vancouver Whitecaps.
According to Tourism Vancouver stats for 2016, 438,521 overnight visitors came to Vancouver from Washington state, and 2017 numbers are already above that heading into the fourth quarter. According to Google Maps, it takes just under three hours to drive from downtown Seattle to downtown Vancouver.
Currently the closest NHL franchise to the Canucks is in Calgary; Vancouver’s nearest American team is the San Jose Sharks, who play out of northern California.
Like Vancouver, Seattle had an NBA franchise (from 1967 to 2008) before it moved to Oklahoma City. The Key Arena project has consequently kick-started debate about the return of an NBA franchise to both Seattle and Vancouver.
The NBA Vancouver Grizzlies played in town from 1995 to 2001 before mismanagement, a weak Canadian dollar and other challenges resulted in their relocation to Memphis, Tennessee.
