Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Toronto Could See Sports Monopoly

In 1998, the question was posed, "Can whom ever owns the Skydome in Toronto Canada develop themselves into a monopoly"? This questine in 1998 can be asked today however with a little more knowledge. In 1998 the Skydome and those who owned it were losing money and bacame broke in a corporate sense. In the article they compare the Expos and the BlueJays. As one might know now, there is no longer a Montreal Expos baseball team, however there are still the lonesome BlueJays in the midst of a country with enough fans to possibly monopolize. My question is that, can the new owners of the Skydome pull off a giant monopoly of sports in Canada? Turner, the media company whom already owns the Atlanta Braves already has one synergy or owns a team plus the media coverage, may possibly interested in the purchase of the Skydome and BlueJays. With that in mind, Let's recap. If there were a synergy with Turner and the Toronto BlueJays, being the only team in Canada, just think of the profit which could be made. The article also posses the question, "what if one person obtained the Leafs, Raptors, and BlueJays along with the concerts and what not the Skydome and Air Canada Arena hold?" The article directly states, "The area around the stadium and the arena, would become one big sports and entertainment complex. The television network would have first crack at what amounts to nearly a game a day during the calendar year." Is there a possibility for a monopoly?

2 comments:

Joshua Busser said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Joshua Busser said...

Personally, I think Turner would be fine purchasing the SkyDome, although there is a bit of a flaw in the monopoly idea. Baseball is such a niche market in Canada that for someone to control it's only team is not really monopolizing, in my opinion. Cleveland had a situation like this when the Gateway complex of Jacobs Field and Gund Arena opened in the mid-90's - originally, Gund had control of the whole shebang, owning the complex, although the Indians were owned by Jacobs. The arena hosted both the Cavs and the Lumberjacks hockey team, plus a large number of concerts and events. However, there was nowhere near a monopoly in that market, given the other venues for sports, and the market size. Toronto is not that big of a market to have a monopoly on sports be impactful, but, even if Turner owns both complexes, a monopoly on major Canadian sports is not in the cards.