City needs a strategy for hosting sporting events

By Collin Gallant on August 22, 2019.

cgallant@medicinehatnews.com
@CollinGallant

Conversations about how to make the City of Medicine Hat more financially responsible this week drifted on to the issue of how municipal support for sporting events can be reformed.

And like many of these same discussions in the same vein, there is potential for discord and misunderstanding in council, the general public and among the numerous community level groups that put on events in our city.

Grant money is always a tricky topic.

If council is seriously considering reworking how it provides financial support for bids to host things like provincial summer games, international hockey or curling events, and even single-sport tournaments of note, it’ll need to seriously consider how it scores on consistency and presentation.

At this week’s council meeting Coun. Phil Turnbull again raised the issue of how to rejuvenate the process, decide how much money council can afford to earmark, and potentially recover some of funds from successful games to help make the process self-perpetuating.

There’s a notable level of interest and discussions will likely take place.

But there’s no obvious political and fiscal win-win here, and potential to be seen as chiselling away at a tradition of hosting suburb events.

The process as it stands is that, essentially, a group will approach the city seeking support for a bid proposal, a grant (cash, facility time or both), and, depending, some sort of financial guarantee to cover losses. The latter is an increasingly common stipulation from national sporting groups on bid applications.

Such losses have never been registered on a local event, but its often the most controversial aspect of hosting a Special Olympics event or senior games, so it’s the most chewed over aspect.

Similarly common is that umbrella organizations require a portion of any surplus to flow to them.

That leaves a remainder for the local organization, or multi-sport local bid committees to use as legacy funds. That also leaves little room for the city to recoup funds.

Turnbull’s point, and that of others, is that is the city underwrites the games, so shouldn’t it see some of the surplus? Also, he says, its becoming harder and harder to fundraise when potential donors hear about surpluses.

Unsaid, but certainly compounding the problem is the commonly held opinion the city should have enough money to go it alone.

Who else remembers the $10-million Canalta Centre public fundraising campaign that fell 95% short?

The city does support amateur sports and it did support the 2016 Alberta Winter Games. They resulted in large windfall of funds for local sporting organizations to buy equipment or improve their programming for residents.

It’s all the same goal, done by an organizing committee, not the city grant, but connecting A to B to C can be difficult exercise.

Like businesses, residential taxpayers likely feel their tax bill is contribution enough.

The larger local conversation in Medicine Hat has been the need to separate wants from needs in an era of budget trimming.

Yet, sporting events and tournaments are a key piece in an effort to boost both tourism and the city’s profile as an economic driver.

Some wonder, why then, the tourism and accommodation sector doesn’t shoulder a larger portion of the costs?

Perhaps its time for citizens, corporate and otherwise, to realize that their private support, financial and otherwise, should be a prerequisite to staging events and generally bettering the community.

That doesn’t leave the city a clear way forward on this particular issue, though. If it’s done wrong, surely there will be accusations of bureaucrats wringing money out of amateur athletic groups.

City council would do well to clearly define a strategy, earmark a set pool of funds, and spell out priorities, and then be prepared to stand behind the plan.

(Collin Gallant is a News reporter. To comment on this and other editorials, go to https://www.medicinehatnews.com/opinions.)