A deal that needs to pay off

It’s an announcement that, on the face of it, doesn’t exactly strike confidence.

After months of negotiations, the city has finally announced that a deal has been reached for a new jumbotron at the General Motors Centre. The outdated screen above center ice – which has been in place since the arena opened a decade ago – may even be replaced before the next season of the Oshawa Generals gets underway.

While this may be good news for Gens fans, it may not be for the city’s residents.

After all, it appears the city is going to be covering the costs for the new screen, which comes with an estimated price tag of more than $850,000. That’s not a small chunk of change.

The initial offer on the table, however, was the complete opposite – it was the Gens who offered to cover the costs. So how did negotiations do a complete 180? According to Generals’ owner Rocco Tullio, the city will be footing the bill, something the city has yet to confirm.

The issue at hand is the shared marketing agreement between the junior hockey club and the city. Under the current agreement, both sides get a cut of marketing revenue associated with the Gens. When the team offered to pay for all of the jumbotron, it wanted some “concessions” on this agreement. The details of that offer have yet to be made public.

With the city not footing the bill, it is assumed they will be taking a larger share of the revenue. Exactly how much the city will be taking is not known for sure, as the deal is still covered by confidentiality clauses.

This new six-figure bill for the city will be on top of the list of repairs needed for the arena over the next decade, including $200,000 for interior finishes this year, $600,000 for a new parking lot next year and $900,000 for new elevators by 2026.

With costs in the millions, one can only hope that the marketing revenue agreement changes are a sweet enough deal to justify using hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money to put a new screen over an arena. A successful bid for the Memorial Cup, for example, could lead to high revenue for the arena and, therefore, the city.

With a deal like this, the city better know what it’s doing, or otherwise the taxpayers of Oshawa are going to be left on the hook for covering another expense that didn’t pay off.