Downtown arena ‘major draw’ for fans

A consultant’s report prepared for the Ottawa Senators shows that the team currently draws a vast majority of its Ottawa fans from neighbourhoods west of the Rideau River.

The report, by Abacus Data, concludes that a downtown arena would drive visitor traffic to a redeveloped LeBreton Flats while making Senators hockey games more attractive to people living in South Ottawa, Barrhaven, Orléans, Gloucester and Gatineau.

A downtown location would mean an additional 520,000 people in the National Capital Region are within 15 kilometres of the arena.

The Senators Sports and Entertainment Group sold about 1.1 million tickets to hockey games, concerts and special events last year, but there was “a significant geographic imbalance in sales figures” based on proximity to the Canadian Tire Centre, the report found

In a survey, nearly 25 per cent of people who don’t attend Senators games cited the arena location as a disincentive.

A downtown rink would offer “a major opportunity,” the report said, to make games more convenient and draw more fans from the east and south ends of Ottawa, and Gatineau.

Obtained by the Citizen, the report analysed public opinion surveys, market-research data and financial information from the Senators Sports and Entertainment Group to arrive at its findings.

It was prepared in November as the Senators — one of two principals in the RendezVous LeBreton Group — finalized their development proposal for LeBreton Flats, the largest parcel of empty land in downtown Ottawa.

The Abacus report offered club executives some hard numbers to support their pursuit of the National Capital Commission site. The RendezVous group has put forward a $3.5-billion redevelopment plan with an NHL rink and event centre as its centrepiece.

The Canadian Tire Centre is 20 years old — late middle age for an NHL arena. The club spends more than $3 million a year to maintain and improve the building, but it will require expensive repairs in the next decade, including a new roof, windows and doors.

The LeBreton project offers the club a golden opportunity to avoid some heavy repair costs while also fixing a long-standing problem: location.

The current site was chosen by team founder Bruce Firestone, whose 1990 bid for an NHL team was predicated on an arena being built as part of a massive development project in Kanata. But the location of the rink — more than 20 kilometres from downtown Ottawa on a highway crowded with commuters — has always been a thorn in the side of marketers and fans alike.

The Abacus report found that the Canadian Tire Centre’s location “depresses” attendance rates for the team.

The consultants examined the postal codes of those who bought Senators tickets and plotted them on a map of the National Capital Region.

They found that 30 per cent of ticket buyers come from Kanata and Stittsville, even though the areas comprise 12 per cent of the region’s population. Those living in Ottawa West, with about 15 per cent of the population, make up 21 per cent of the team’s ticket-buying fan base.

By contrast, those in the east and south ends of the city, and those in Gatineau, are under-represented. Although Orléans, Cumberland and Gloucester comprise 14 per cent of the region’s population, they fill about 11 per cent of the team’s seats. Gatineau residents, who represent 21 per cent of the population, make up only four per cent of ticket buyers.

A 2015 survey by the Nielsen group found that three-quarters of people in the region consider themselves casual or avid hockey fans. Half of them identified as Senators fans.

In the City of Ottawa, the support for the Senators is closer to 75 per cent, the report said, but the region’s overall average is brought down by the strong support for the Montreal Canadiens in Gatineau.

Moving the arena downtown would have a dramatic impact on the distance that most fans in the region would have to travel to attend an NHL game. Now, about 2,000 residents live with a kilometre of the Canadian Tire Centre, another 89,000 live within five kilometres, and 300,000 live within 15 kilometres.

A rink on LeBreton Flats would massively expand those living nearby to 15,000 residents within one kilometre, 320,000 people within five kilometres, and 820,000 within 15 kilometres.

The team believes those numbers would translate into ticket sales. A November 2015 Neilsen survey conducted for the club found that 50 per cent of respondents said they would be more likely to attend a Senators game at a downtown arena, while 57 per cent said they would be more likely to attend another live event.

The Abacus report concluded that a new downtown event centre would be “a major draw” for Senators fans, tourists and their money, and could drive a considerable increase in ticket sales.

Senators owner Eugene Melnyk has said a downtown arena could add as much as $10 million more to the team’s payroll.