Move over Vancouver, Burnaby and Richmond: Surrey wants to be in the sport tourism game.
Three years after Vancouver and Richmond hosted 2010 Winter Olympics sporting events, the City of Surrey has launched a sport tourism strategy to bring more national and international events to the second biggest municipality in B.C.
Surrey, which hosted the 2012 B.C. Summer Games and Surrey International World Music Marathon, wants to use its 15 indoor facilities and 22 athletic parks to increase overnight stays at its dozen hotels by 5% a year through 2015.
Not only is Surrey looking for more events, but it also wants to lure provincial and national sport organizations to relocate their headquarters in Surrey. Adding more swimming pools, sheets of ice and kick-starting a privately operated tennis centre with six outdoor and four indoor courts are listed as priorities.
Surrey wants to attract six to eight tournaments by 2015 and be a training base for Rio 2016-bound Summer Olympians. Surrey hosts the Canadian Open Fastpitch tournament at Softball City every summer and is bidding for the 2016 world women’s championship. The municipality is also banking on its big South Asian community to attract more field hockey, kabaddi and cricket events.
Oddly, the Surrey sport tourism strategy report makes scant mention of the BC Lions, whose training centre has been situated next to Tom Binnie Park in Whalley, near the Gateway SkyTrain station, since 1990.
In 2009, the Lions and Surrey reached a five-year lease. The Lions have a two-year option they can exercise in 2014, but president Dennis Skulsky said the club is being courted by Richmond and Burnaby.
“Maybe a pipe dream for me, [but] is there any opportunity for us to practise in the stadium and be part of any new complex that might come up somewhere around there?” Skulsky said. “We either need to be near the downtown core, near the stadium, or we need to have at very least a transit station.”
What may not be a pipe dream is bringing the Grey Cup back to Vancouver ahead of schedule. Stadium uncertainty in Ottawa and Winnipeg means the Canadian Football League took a bid for the 2014 game from the Lions. The government gave BC Pavilion Corp. $2.7 million for the bid, which is $900,000 more than the price paid to lure the 2011 game to Vancouver as the showcase event of the renovated BC Place Stadium.
Skulsky said he expects confirmation by the end of March. If unsuccessful, the Lions hope to bid for 2015 or 2016.
Consider this Xs and Os scenario: the BC Liberals are third-and-long, deep in their own end zone late and trailing late in the fourth quarter. Christy Clark throws a Hail Mary and scores a touchdown with a double-whammy news conference to announce not only the Grey Cup’s return for 2014, but also that the stadium will be renamed Telus Park.
It still might not be enough for the Liberals to knock off the NDP, but it would give Clark another excuse to wear that number 35 jersey someday.
Vancouver has hosted 15 Grey Cups – including eight at BC Place. The Lions celebrate their 60th season in 2013. If successful, the 2014 game would come 60 years after Empire Stadium hosted the 1955 classic between the Pop Ivy-coached champion Edmonton Eskimos and Peahead Walker-coached Montreal Alouettes. Those were the days when football was football, and coaches had colourful nicknames.
Lockout losses
On first glance, it looks as if Canada’s National Hockey League fans returned, sheep-like, to arenas across Canada after the lockout ended in January.
Level5 Strategy Group, however, says its market research shows not all is tickety-boo. Fans are not happy campers after the third big lockout since 1994. Level5 found hockey’s relevance on the decline among Canadians.
Trust, respect and confidence is down 15% to 20%. Diehard fans felt two-thirds more under-appreciated and more than a third of them said they would reduce ticket purchases, TV channel subscriptions and hockey merchandise buys.
Casual fans feel 41% more negative about the sport, claiming to feel emotions like “disgust,” “upset” and “cheated.” Level5 estimated the NHL lost $300 million worth of brand value because of the lockout.
Even though the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics offer little TV value because of the unfriendly time difference, expect the NHL and its players to be at the next Games. A “for the love of the game” strategy is one step toward making amends with disaffected fans. •
