OSEG to combine football, soccer
REDBLACKS premium ticket holders can see both
The owner of the Ottawa REDBLACKS announced Monday the season-ticket prices for the Canadian Football League expansion team’s home games at Lansdowne Park in 2014.
The twist is that 920 premium club seats, priced at $2,285 per season plus HST and a Capital Replacement Fund surcharge, will offer chances to watch not only the CFL team, but also Ottawa Fury FC, another sports property of Ottawa Sports & Entertainment Group and a North American Soccer League expansion club that itself begins play next year.
“It really works best if it’s one product for both sports,” Jeff Hunt, an OSEG partner and president of the sports division of the partnership that is redeveloping Lansdowne Park under terms of an agreement with the City of Ottawa, said Monday.
Deposits of $25 each have been made for more than 11,500 REDBLACKS season tickets, or nearly half of the 24,000 capacity of the rebuilt stadium.
The club seats will offer access to a lounge for pre-game food and nonalcoholic beverages and parking in Lansdowne’s new underground garage. Deposits of $25 each have been made for more than 11,500 REDBLACKS season tickets, or nearly half of the 24,000 capacity of the rebuilt stadium, which is to open just before the 2014 CFL season starts in late June. Ottawa Fury FC will play five home games at Carleton University in the spring portion of the NASL schedule, which will begin in April and end in mid-June.
A media release said OSEG representatives had been inviting fans who made deposits on season tickets to a preview centre on Ogilvie Road for virtual viewing of seating options at various price points, starting at $179.20 plus HST and the capital surcharge.
Hunt said proceeds of the surcharge would be used to maintain and upgrade the brand new stadium over time. “Our hope is that, at the end of 30 years, that we hand (the facility) back to the city in as good a shape as when we opened it.”
Under the expansion agreement with the CFL, the REDBLACKS can’t sign any free-agent players until after the Nov. 24 Grey Cup Game at Regina. Ottawa also needs a head coach and assistants, but general manager Marcel Desjardins wants to cast as wide a net as possible, which in many cases means waiting until an individual’s commitment to his current CFL club has expired.
“I think the bulk of the talking is going to occur as teams’ seasons come to an end,” Hunt said.
The REDBLACKS selected four players in the 2013 CFL college draft, and they’ll add 24 in an expansion draft on Dec. 16. Free agency for current CFLers begins Feb. 15, and Ottawa has a full complement of picks in the next college draft.