On Thin Ice?
Personally, perhaps it's skating on thin ice to feel there is a certain entitlement for their bottom line at taxpayer expense when the Ottawa Senators team president Cyril Leeder pleads with the Ontario Government not to set aside the current eligibility of corporate business to claim a 50% tax exemption for the purchase of sport tickets. As a business-entertainment expense.
After all, private citizens wishing to attend a sport arena to watch a game of organized sports get no such break. Why should business have all the fun? They at least can generally afford the sky-high prices of tickets, far more readily than most people in the private sphere can. And think about it: if a sport-invested family with young children themselves engaged in organized sports wants to attend a game together, the combined family ticket price would make it unlikely.
Not so for businesses who claim they make important business contacts and deals through treating clients and potential business partners to games to be watched in their company private box. If providing that kind of fun and entertainment for those with whom they do business is such a successful venture, why not absorb the entire cost, since it's a money-gaining venture? Why expect the taxpayer to pick up the tab? Which is what happens when government loses money.
But no, "We need that to survive", Mr. Leeder claims. Big teams located in big cities can afford to absorb the additional costs, smaller teams located in less populous cities like Ottawa cannot, he insists. Tickets to a Maple Leafs game cost twice what they do to attend an Ottawa Senators hockey game. So how does that make sense? And if a team cannot enthuse their home audience sufficiently to support them, they're doing something wrong.
It's quite possible the entire league is doing something quite wrong. Those sky-high salaries for hockey players, for example, are ludicrous. How vital are these players to society, what do they contribute apart from notoriety associated with the violence in hockey? Granted, there are some good players who don't indulge in violence, and who are good citizens who perform volunteer charitable activities, but this still does not justify those immense salaries.
Pay the players a little less, take a little less profit, price the tickets more modestly accordingly, and do not expect government to take a taxing hit that ends up costing the ordinary citizen-taxpayer.
After all, private citizens wishing to attend a sport arena to watch a game of organized sports get no such break. Why should business have all the fun? They at least can generally afford the sky-high prices of tickets, far more readily than most people in the private sphere can. And think about it: if a sport-invested family with young children themselves engaged in organized sports wants to attend a game together, the combined family ticket price would make it unlikely.
Not so for businesses who claim they make important business contacts and deals through treating clients and potential business partners to games to be watched in their company private box. If providing that kind of fun and entertainment for those with whom they do business is such a successful venture, why not absorb the entire cost, since it's a money-gaining venture? Why expect the taxpayer to pick up the tab? Which is what happens when government loses money.
But no, "We need that to survive", Mr. Leeder claims. Big teams located in big cities can afford to absorb the additional costs, smaller teams located in less populous cities like Ottawa cannot, he insists. Tickets to a Maple Leafs game cost twice what they do to attend an Ottawa Senators hockey game. So how does that make sense? And if a team cannot enthuse their home audience sufficiently to support them, they're doing something wrong.
It's quite possible the entire league is doing something quite wrong. Those sky-high salaries for hockey players, for example, are ludicrous. How vital are these players to society, what do they contribute apart from notoriety associated with the violence in hockey? Granted, there are some good players who don't indulge in violence, and who are good citizens who perform volunteer charitable activities, but this still does not justify those immense salaries.
Pay the players a little less, take a little less profit, price the tickets more modestly accordingly, and do not expect government to take a taxing hit that ends up costing the ordinary citizen-taxpayer.
posted by Pieface | 7:06 PM
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